I Put On My Thinking Cap

I used to hate it when my grammar-school teacher would link two or three things that sound alike but mean different things. "Oh, no!" I would wail to myself. "Now I'll always think of one thing when I think of the other, and that will confuse me." So I would put in extra effort to file the info away in two different places, one for its, let's say, and one for it's.

Its is a possessive pronoun. Possessive meaning, "belongs to." I'm talking about a magazine and I want to refer to the cover: its cover. Pronoun meaning not a noun (the name of a person, place, or thing), but a special stand-in word, like I, you, he, she, it, we, y'all, they.

One of the South's greatest contributions to the English language is y'all. We no longer have an intimate you, formerly thee, thou, thy, thine, like French, Italian, Spanish. We have never had a plural you, other than you (implied plural). Y'all is perfect. You becomes the form of address for a single person (possibly an intimate); y'all becomes the form of address for a group.

It's is a contraction; that is, the phrase used to be longer, "it is," but, when you put the apostrophe (') in place of the letter i in is, you can use a shorter, more colloquial sounding phrase: it's. "It's a bird, it's a plane, it's . . . Superman!"

Simple as that.

Vitruvian Man

"Vitruvian Man" is that pen-and-ink drawing you are probably familiar with, by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), of a man in anatomical, side, and spread poses inside, and defining the points of, a circle and a square. Da Vinci made the drawing in about 1492.

Remember the Monticello post a few days ago? Oh, well, no matter.  Anyway, we recovered the 10-volume work, De architectura (Ten Books of Architecture) by Vitruvius, first-century-BCE Roman architect, in 1414. But we did not recover his illustrations.

Vitruvius believed that human proportions had their basis in the cosmic principles of geometry and proposed that this truth should inform our architecture. Since we had lost Vitruvius's original drawing, da Vinci made one, giving Vitruvius's text in the mirror-writing around the figure.

In 2011, researchers at Imperial College London noticed that the model for da Vinci's drawing may have been a cadaver who died of the inguinal hernia evident on the left side of the groin. (Today, if the condition were severe enough, we would have repaired it by emergency surgery; in 1492, it would have been fatal.)

The discovery that da Vinci's Vitruvian man has a physical flaw is big. Monumental, even. Vitruvius articulated the theory of the microcosm; da Vinci illustrated it, and, maybe even unwittingly, enriched the idea. Each of us is perfect as a Platonic representation of the human figure; each of us is subject to disease and imperfection as an individual.

I'm not a philosopher, so what do I know? But that's my take on it.

Vitruvian man is depicted on NASA's EVA (Extra-Vehicular Activity) patch. (NASA is the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration.) The patch is worn on the spacesuits of members of EMU (American Extravehicular Mobility Unit) and on the uniform jumpsuits of people who have walked in space.

"Vitruvian Man" as drawn by Leonardo da Vinci in 1492.

"Da Vinci Vitruve Luc Viatour" by Leonardo da Vinci - Own work www.lucnix.be. 2007-09-08 (photograph).

Nerd

I am not surprised to learn (from Wikipedia) that the word nerd first appeared in a book by Dr. Seuss (pseudonym of children's author and illustrator, Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904-1991). The book was If I Ran the Zoo, published in 1950, one of my favorites then and now.

Narrator Gerald McGrew claims that he would collect "a Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker too" for his imaginary zoo. Nerd, like Nerkle, is a perfect Dr. Seuss word.

Along the way, the word has become associated with a person who is single-minded, or perhaps now we would say obsessive, about an intellectual pursuit, and who is passionate about that pursuit, but not necessarily comfortable socially. So also introverted or reclusive.

When I claim to be a word nerd, I mean it! When I wrote papers in college (by hand, I might add, because we had typewriters, not computers, and I could not write on a typewriter) I stacked exactly five sheets of paper on my desk, I began writing, I tossed the top sheet I had written on, because the writing was messy or crooked or wrong-headed, added the next fifth sheet, looked up the word I wanted to use next in the dictionary so that I could be sure it was the right word and I was using it correctly, and so on to the end of the first paragraph. There were a lot of crumpled-up first pages in my dorm wastebasket.

I've come a long way in the obsessive department, but, if you ask me what I am thinking about at any given time, it is likely to be a word.

"Read a Book!"

When I was a baby, I would stand up in my crib and yell: "Margarett! Read a book!" (Margarett was my grandmother and I had learned that calling out her name got her to come running.)

Among the books I loved at that time were the Simon and Schuster Little Golden Books, which came on the market in the fall of 1942. The books were colorful, child-sized books and sold for 25 cents each (about $4.00 in today's dollars). This was something my family could afford.

Of the twelve original titles, I vividly remember "reading" at least three.

In the Poky Little Puppy, the puppy learns, "Don't be late for dessert, or you might not get any." This was never my problem.

In the Three Little Kittens, the kittens lose their mittens. Oh, no! They have to find them. And then they have to wash and dry them and get them ready for next time. I can't remember ever having lost my mittens; not that I don't lose them now, because I do, or I would if I dared to take them with me.

And in the Little Red Hen, the hen who found the wheat planted it, tended it, harvested it, and baked it into bread. Every time she asked another animal for help, she got a "no" and had to do everything herself. When it came time to eat the bread, she told everyone that, since they did not help with the work, they could not share the loaf of bread with her.

But I do try to share, whether anybody has helped me or not.

Junk Food

Before 1972, we didn't have junk food. (According to the Wikipedia entry, Junk Food, the first use of  the phrase is attributed to Michael Jacobson, then director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.)

We had snack food, about which see Bon Appetit's fascinating post, United Snacks of America, from the 1900s to the present day. We had candy bars (circa 1903), convenience food (1937), and fast food (1951). But until the phrase junk food, we had no implicit judgment of the value of this food.

My idea is that by labeling food good or healthful, bad or junky, we add a false moral component to the equation. You are not good if you eat healthful food and you are not bad if you eat junky food. By the way, in a distinction that may be disappearing, healthful means "beneficial to health" and healthy means "in good health." So food cannot be healthy.

As anecdotal proof only, I offer the story of Kansas State University professor of nutrition Mark Haub. He went on a junk-food diet consisting mostly of Twinkies, Oreos, and Doritos.  "[I]n weight loss," he said, "pure calorie counting is what matters, not the nutritional value of the food." He lost 27 pounds in two months, lowered his body mass index (BMI), and lowered bad cholesterol.

Not that Professor Haub recommends such a diet; he does not. He does suggest that portion size is a factor in weight loss or gain.

Monticello

In 1764, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) turned 21 and came into his inheritance of 5,000 acres in Albermarle County, Virginia, his father having died about seven years earlier. Jefferson first used the name Monticello in a garden-book entry of 1767 and, in 1768, he cleared and leveled the 850-ft peak called Monticello ("Little Mountain" in Italian) on his property.

By this time, Jefferson's library included Andrea Palladio's 1570 I Quattro Libri dell' Architettura (Four Books of Architecture), which showed plans for villas based on classical Roman plans, James Gibbs's 1732 Rules for Drawing, and an Italian-English dictionary. From his studies of these (and other) works, Jefferson, acting as his own architect, designed and drew up plans for Monticello.

Now the Venetian Renaissance architect Palladio (1508-1580) had studied Vitruvius (ca. 80-15 BCE), the Roman architect and author of De architectura (Ten Books of Architecture), whose text and illustrations were both lost during the first collapse of European civilization in the fourth century CE. Vitruvius's text was rediscovered in a monastery library in the early Renaissance, 1414, the first illustrated version was published in 1511, and Palladio himself provided illustrations for a later version.

On the plantation, Jefferson grew tobacco and mixed crops and later changed over to wheat. The property comprised the house, a nailery and other outbuildings, slave quarters, gardens for flowers and produce, and experimental gardens. Around one-hundred-and-fifty slaves served in the house, on the grounds, and in the fields.

Jefferson brought his wife Martha home to Monticello in 1772. They enjoyed ten years of happy marriage and parented six children, two of whom survived to adulthood. His wife died in 1782, four months after the birth of her last child. At this time, the original Monticello was mostly complete.

Two years after the death of his wife, in 1784, Jefferson left Monticello and took a diplomatic post in Paris. While in Europe, Jefferson continued his amateur study of classical architecture and took note of the current trends as well.

Jefferson returned to Monticello in 1789 and began remodeling it in 1796 on the site of the original house. This time he wanted to go beyond the drawings in the books and bring home the true Enlightenment spirit of Monticello in a way that the original building had not.  He continued remodeling Monticello throughout his presidency (1801-1809).

Monticello is illustrated on the reverse (back) of the United States nickel.

A floor plan of Monticello.

Image credit: Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Copyright © Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc. From the Monticello website at http://www.monticello.org.

Elements of Style

In his Elements of Style (Ithaca, NY: W. P. Humphrey, 1918), Walter Strunk, Jr., rules on using commas in a series of three or more terms, one of my favorite little "tests" for clear writing. "Thus write," he says, "red, white, and blue; honest, energetic, but headstrong; He opened the letter, read it, and made a note of its contents."

Just like any style sheet for newspaper, publishing house, or corporation, Strunk's little book is prescriptive, because he is making one of many editorial decisions that will save the writer from confusing his or her reader.

Conforming to the nature of a style sheet, which gives examples but not reasons, Strunk does not explain why the writer should use the serial comma. But the reason is that the reader never has to puzzle out the meaning of a sentence like this: "My usual breakfast is coffee, bacon and eggs and toast." (Now that I've looked up Wikipedia's example for the serial comma, I have brain-freeze on an original example.)

No, this mistake (as I would read it) is not life-threatening. If you could care less about such things, au revoir and maybe I'll catch you on the flip side. But, with the serial comma, the meaning of each sentence becomes clear on the first reading. To me, that is a win-win.

However, the original Elements of Style (1918) is nothing more than a style sheet, like Associated Press’s Stylebook for journalists or  the Chicago Manual of Style for publishers. Until, that is, E. B. White (1899-1985), one of our great American writers and a former student of Strunk at Cornell University, transforms it, in his 1959 edition, into a true guide for writers (Elements of Style, Fourth Edition, William Strunk, Jr., E. B. White, Roger Angell [New York: Longman, 1999]).

Soon, I'll let E. B. White take us from the mechanics of clear writing to the hallmarks of good writing.

Summer Reading

My dear food-writer and foodie friend has said several things to me that have changed my life. My favorite is, "Whenever I don't know what to read, I read Pride and Prejudice. That way, I'm never disappointed."

When my daughter had cancer and our family went through two years of hell trying to save her life (and succeeding), I read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (London: T. Egerton, 1813). When my husband was ill with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis--also known as Lou Gehrig's disease), I read Pride and Prejudice. I read it after I was widowed, and look forward to starting it again this hot summer evening.

I confess that, until lately, I have been thrown by Elizabeth's answer to her sister's question, "How long have you loved him?" It sounds so flip.

Elizabeth says, " . . . I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." (Notice that in most of the recent mini-series and movie adaptations, script writers rarely change Austen's dialogue, because each bit of dialogue is so perfect for the person who says it. And this is so perfect for Elizabeth.)

She makes a sly allusion to the theme of the novel, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." Our Elizabeth cannot resist a little humor, even though she takes the joke seriously. But, without pride or prejudice, and now having seen Darcy's estate, she knows what kind of man he truly is. The fields and forests and lakes are well-managed and productive, the people who serve him admire their master for his kindness and fairness, and the house itself, without being showy, shows off his handsome demeanor and his well-ordered and cultivated mind.

Elizabeth sees a union for herself not with a self-important nitwit like Mr. Collins, not with a thoughtless wastrel like Wickham, not with a man who long ago lost his common sense to beauty alone, like her father, but a marriage that truly contributes to the society in which it flourishes.

Singerie

Singerie, French for "monkeyshines" and a kind of chinoiserie, is a design motif in which monkeys join a fun-loving crowd of partiers. Like chinoiserie, it is supposed to provide a gently mocking view of the human condition.

Singerie became fashionable in late 17th-century and 18th-century France and is typically associated with Rococo decorative painting. A primary example of which is the breathtaking Grande Singerie, a recently restored boudoir in the Chateau de Chantilly.

What a great word, singerie! and a loan word at that. And one that is unfamiliar enough that I will continue to italicize it, even though I would not italicize more well-known loan words, like subpoena or faux pas.

To this day, we have sophisticated examples of singerie, in textiles, for example. Just take a look at Scalamandré's wonderful Chinoise Exotique.

But my earliest exposure was to popular singerie. I don't know how many yellow kitchens I went into as a child, on whose walls were a "praying hands" plaque or a Pennsylvania Dutch saying, "Too soon old, too late schmart." Similarly, there could be a monkey see, monkey do relief or a see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil statuette.

Well, enough monkeyshines and on to more serious matters.

Detail of the allegory of the theater.

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