Scott Stilson

#

The word of the year this year is “get to”: Everything I do, I get to do. (Hat tip: Ethan.)

#

Listen, Merriam-Webster: You descriptivists do good work. It’s important we have maps of the lay of our linguistic land as it lies. But don’t purport to explain to the world that prescriptivists are only interested in “‘correctness’ set forth in ‘rules’ that [we] imagine.” Just like poorly developed roads, a poorly designed language (as I concede every language is to some degree) sometimes leads to confusion, frustration, and hazards. To suggest prescriptivists are always wrong to do what they do is the equivalent of saying city planners are always wrong to do what they do.

Misdevelopment of the land has consequences. So it is with lexicons—especially when the words in question are of moral value. Consider “forgive.” If “forgive” is “actually used,” as you write, “by writers and speakers of the English language,” to include by definition reconciliation, forgetting, and anger abatement, which in some circles, although thankfully not quite in your dictionary, resentment being different from anger, it does, then descriptivism can be guilty of abetting the deformation of our moral vocabularies and thus the persistence of harm, including domestic abuse and white supremacy, because despite your protestation, people look to your publications as a guide.

We need people alerting us to semantic hazards and dead ends.

#

Inspired by part of this interview with Lisa Silvestri, the author of Peace by Peace: Risking Public Action, Creating Social Change, which I may read soonish with my friend Neill—after I finish:

here is a list of what bothers me:

#

Proverbs so often puts the locus of wisdom on what we say.

#

“Roman Catholic” is an oxymoron.

#

There is a very fine line between abstruseness and nonsense. And neither writer nor reader can distinguish for sure.

#

Here’s my latest working definition: “forgive”

#

My clipping will be lost on the round trip to Tiny ✏️ 🎤 🎵

#

It was a pleasure today to select recordings from which to make custom ringtones for when Sullivan and Éa call me. (I’ve been using “Whistle Stop” from Disney’s Robin Hood for Carla for years.) Éa even advised me on my selection for her, suggesting the winner (the first twenty-nine seconds of “Mrs. Robinson” by Simon & Garfunkel. For Sullivan, I chose the first thirty seconds of Quincy Jones’ “Soul Bossa Nova,” signifying his easygoing demeanor and his prioritizing enjoyment.

#

In British English, collective nouns, such as “team” and “Microsoft,” often take plural verbs, as in “My team are headed for the championships” and “Microsoft charge me for cloud storage.” I wish we did it this way in America, at least for corporations and governments. That’s because using the singular here hides the personal agency at play in those corporations’ and governments’ decisions and policies, and therefore the credit or guilt people deserve. I dislike it for the same reason I dislike non-poetic metonymy.

A workaround in American English is to use something like “the folks at Google” or “the members of the Trump administration.”

#

You have heard it said, “Hate has no home here.” But I say to you, make a home for hate your heart. Hate heartily that which is hateful, including, yes, hate itself of any human being.

This is, I admit, merely a prescriptivist’s kvetch, since at some point somebody certainly did sneak a definition into the word “hate” that appears to mean “hostility and aversion based on category of human, such as skin color or sexuality.” But this new definition must not be permitted to elbow out its very useful precursor, that is, simply, “intense or passionate dislike.” Hate, defined as such, is, like trust and guilt, a very good thing—a virtue, even—when its is justly pointed. (I don’t need to point out the same about love, although the inverse is worth saying: Love is a very bad thing when it is unjustly pointed.) And there are plenty of things good and right to hate: ecocide, betrayal, unjustified violence, selfishness, and so on.

#

I stand amazed that humans can distinguish /m/ from /n/.

#

Most metonymy is a mistake.

#

I dream of a world in which smartphones and laptops display the title of whatever you’re looking at on their backsides. This would have two societally salubrious effects:

  1. Serendipity might strike as we discover you’re reading a book I’ve also read or listening to an album I think is cool. Or at least you’re letting your stranger-neighbors know a little bit about you; a little uncertainty reduction goes a long way toward reducing stress.
  2. You’re less likely to take in junk.
#

You’re saying I should give in to the vernacular?

— Scott

#

I miss the white pages ✏️ 🎤 🎵

#

“For then will I transform peoples with a pure language for them all to call in the name of the LORD, to serve Him with single intent” (Zephaniah 3:9, Alters).

Lord, please transform Christians in this way. As it is, it seems we’re calling in the name of different lords to serve with various, opposing intents.

#

Just listened to: Traditional Techniques (2020) by Stephen Malkmus. My first Malkmus solo album listen. His lyrics are as weird as in the ’90s, but I had no idea he could make such pretty music. A very good late-night psych-folk stoner album. The effect is similar to hearing The Velvet Underground’s self-titled album. Also, I’m a sucker for 12-string guitar and playfulness with words.

#

Wait, is that a rule? We’re not allowed to have telepathic antecedents?

— Éa, in response to a gentle scold from Scott about a conversation he couldn’t follow

#

Today I am taking Focus up a notch: For 100% of day—morning, afternoon, evening, and night—I am allowing zero Messages and WhatsApp notifications to come through from anyone other than my immediate family, people with whom I have appointments in the next two days and, during the workday, my workmates. I am coupling this with a morning clearing and an evening clearing, rendering how I handle my instant messages more like how I handle my email. This experiment will last either forever or until I observe it’s unloving.

So folks will still get text replies from me twice a day. If that’s not fast enough and they need my attention more urgently, let them place a good, old-fashioned phone call. It’ll be like time travel back to 1993 (minus the coiled cords and dial tones)!

#

I hereby plead with governments, universities, and commercial real estate developers: If you’re going to erect a public clock, please make sure it keeps time. Otherwise, you’re just littering our built environment with noble-looking embarrassments whose only effect is to remind us that everything is broken and most of us don’t care.

#

The ideal birthday communication is neither the tired greeting card not the awkward phone call. The first is unremarkable; the second requires too much of the recipient. Instead, it’s a heartfelt voice message sent via text. 🎉

#

Saying “thank you for your patience” before the speaker knows his listener will give it is presumptuous. Better to say “I’m sorry.”

#

Sullivan said yesterday that every conversation with me feels like an argument. That’s the sort of comment that prompts change in me, I hope!

#

“She was half a girl and half a flower[.]”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, of the first titular character in “Rags Martin-Jones and the Pr-nce of W-les” (1924)