Plain English: Japanese-related idioms and Groundhog's Day

The Toyota recalls and unfolding corporate cover-up have inspired TV political analysts to use a flurry of Japanese-related idioms with a few Hollywood film allusions thrown in. Here are some questions readers have about the source of the expressions.

Q. What do reporters mean when they say Kabuki Dance?

A. Kabuki Dance is a complex metaphor. Kabuki is a Japanese dance/drama form that dates back to 1603. The metaphor is usually used to describe a government or corporate cover-up of corruption, marked by officials changing their stories.

In Kabuki, actors strike stylized poses, wear heavy make-up, and sometimes masks. Actors appear out of nowhere hanging in the air on invisible wires. Stagehands dress completely in black and are therefore invisible to the audience when the stage is dark. The sets are stealthily changed in an instant by the invisible crew. Stages sometimes revolve and have trap doors that allow actors to appear and disappear quickly. Finally a common plot in Kabuki theater is scandal involving government officials. All of these characteristics make Kabuki Dance a multi-faceted metaphor for double-talking, double-dealing, sneaky tactics to avoid telling the truth, and the impression that hidden powers lurking in the darkness are pulling the strings.


Q. What does the expression time to open the kimono mean? I’ve heard it used in dialogue on a TV drama and in a commercial.

A. Time to open the kimono is business slang from the 1980s when Japanese corporations were taking over many American companies. It means the same thing as opening the books or putting all your cards on the table, meaning to disclose all financial data. The recent problem with Toyota has no doubt revived the kimono expression.



Q. I often hear political pundits use the expression “I’m shocked, shocked,” which everybody seems to understand but me. Can you shed some light on what it means?


A. “I’m shocked, shocked,” is a famous quote from the 1942 film classic Casablanca starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Raines. Pundits use the expression to label a politician’s or CEO’s remarks obvious and predictable. The quote is from a scene where a German General orders Casablanca Police Captain Renault to close down Rick’s Café and Casino. The dialogue goes like this . . .

Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Capt. Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
(A croupier hands Renault a pile of money)
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Capt. Renault: [soto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
Capt. Renault: [aloud] Everybody out at once!

Q. I’ve seen the movie Groundhog Day, but I don’t understand what it means when used by political analysts. What are they referring to?

A. Pundits often use Groundhog Day to describe two situations in particular. One is when a politician has a bad day that closely follows a previous bad day. It’s also used to describe recurring problems. In the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray plays a weatherman who becomes the victim of an unexplained supernatural phenomenon. He wakes up and lives the same day over and over and over again. A quote from the film is “He’s having the worst day of his life . . . over and over . . .”

Eventually the news cycle comes to an end as it will with Toyota. When the spotlight shifts to focus on a new crisis or scandal, political analysts will pull out a different set of allusions, metaphors, and quotations to spice up their analysis. I doubt if pundits realize how obscure many of these references are since they tend to talk to other pundits both on and off the air.

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Mary Jane McKinney is the creator and owner of Grammardog.com LLC, publisher of grammar, style, and proofreading exercises that use sentences from literature. She is a former high school English teacher and dedicated grammarian whose column Plain English appears in several Texas newspapers.

Grammardog.com LLC, P.O. Box 299, Christoval, TX 76935, www.grammardog.com, 325-896-2479, fifi@grammardog.com.

Tuesday Trivia

1. Which book gets its title from a nursery rhyme that begins, "Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn /Apple seed and apple thorn…”?
2. What is the title of Shakespeare’s lost play?
3. Which Greek writer was described by contemporaries as, “of loathsome aspect...potbellied, misshapen of head, snub-nosed, swarthy, dwarfish, bandy-legged, short-armed, squint-eyed, liver-lipped—a portentous monstrosity?"
4. 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” is a coin phrased by which author?
5. Which French author was shot in the leg and left with a permanent limp by his nephew, a young man who suffered from paranoia?

Last Week's Answers


During early drafts of Gone with the Wind, what was the name that Margaret Mitchell chose for the O’Hara’s plantation before settling on “Tara?”


In her early drafts, Margaret Mitchell not only called her main character "Pansy O'Hara" but also referred to the O’Hara plantation as "Fountenoy Hall."



Of the 2200 persons quoted in the current edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, how many are attributed to women?


Of the 2200 persons quoted in the current edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, only 164 are women.


Which award-winning author both participated in and later coached for the Philips Exeter Academy wrestling program in Exeter, New Hampshire — a theme that appears in several of his best-selling novels?


John Irving, author of A Prayer for Owen Meany, The World According to Garp, and Cider House Rules was a part of the Phillips Exeter Academy wrestling program both as a wrestler and as an assistant coach.


Which title published eight years before J.K. Rowling’s first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, features a boy named Henry who attends Wizarding School, doesn’t think he has talent, and has a good friend with red hair?


Wizard's Hall, a young adult novel by author Jane Yolen, bears many similarities to J.K. Rowling’s popular series including a wicked wizard trying to destroy the school and magical pictures on the wall move, speak, and change.


Which Young Adult author got her start because she wanted to write the books that she sought out but couldn’t find herself as a child?


Author Beverly Cleary, now 93 years old, wrote her first book Henry Huggins in 1951 while working as a librarian was in Yakima, Washington.

Save Reading is Fundamental!

I just got this e-mail from Reading is Fundamental:

President Obama Eliminates Funding for Reading Is Fundamental's Book Distribution Program Serving 4.4 Million Children Nationwide

Statement from Carol H. Rasco, president and CEO, of Reading Is Fundamental February 5, 2010

"On February 1, President Obama released his proposed FY2011 budget which eliminates the funding for Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) and its nationwide services. Without this federal funding, over 4.4 million children and families will not receive free books or reading encouragement from RIF programs at nearly 17,000 locations throughout the U.S.

"Unless Congress reinstates $25 million in funding for this program, RIF will not be able to distribute 15 million books annually to the nation's children at greatest risk for academic failure. RIF programs in schools, community centers, hospitals, military bases, and other locations serving children from low-income families, children with disabilities, homeless children, and children without adequate access to libraries. The Inexpensive Book Distribution program is authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (SEC.5451 Inexpensive Book Distribution Program for Reading Motivation) and is not funded through earmarks. It has been funded by Congress and six Administrations without interruption since 1975.

"Since its founding in 1966, RIF has played a critical role in improving literacy in this country by providing new, free books for children to keep and build home libraries. Access to books and the power of choice ignite children's hunger for knowledge and a passion for learning. In addition, research has shown that children who have more access to books not only perform better academically, but also become productive individuals whose contributions help create strong communities. On behalf of RIF and its network of over 400,000 volunteers nationwide, I urge all Americans to contact their congressional representatives and ask them to reinstate funding for this vital program."

Act Now: RIF.org/saverif

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The RIF program is one of the best funding sources for getting kids access to books at a young age. Follow the link above to try to send an e-mail to your representative urging him or her to keep RIF in the budget.

Cut Through the Policy Jargon! Help Shape This Year's NCTE Virtual Conference

What does it mean to pursue high expectations in English education? The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is seeking input from teachers like you to help shape the content for this year's Virtual Conference, scheduled for Spring 2010. According to the information page for the 2010 NCTE Virtual Conference webpage:

Maintaining "high expectations" is now a constant in every education reform proposal. But what does this mean for literacy educators? It must be more than having "hard classes" and strict rules. The purpose of this virtual conference is to explore what pursuing high expectations means in practice.

• How can we best promote and participate in whole school reform efforts to improve literacy learning systematically?
  
• How do we work with data/indicators of student learning as a member of a school team/learning community?
• How can we capitalize on technological innovations to enjoy practical professional development that provides support when and where we need it?
  

This innovative online conference cuts through the policy jargon to provide solid insights into how literacy teaching practices can change in every classroom to transform student learning.

We would like to know from you, our knowledgeable network of members, nonmembers, past convention attendees, web seminar participants, basically EVERYONE, what you feel are the most valuable topics for this conference to address and what speakers/presenters you would like to hear from in this exciting virtual conference environment.

Starting today you can go to the NCTE Ning and nominate topics and speakers. Once nominations have been collected in Phase 1, we will narrow the list down to the finalist list and then open voting again for Phase 3. Then, we will craft the conference around the topics and speakers chosen by you!

Phase 1 (February 12-16)
Topic and speaker nominations collected on the NCTE Ning. Noiminations will end at midnight on February 16.

Phase 2 (February 16-17)
NCTE staff reviews the top topics and speakers to ensure they fit within the theme and budget for the conference. Then staff will create a finalist list for both topics and speakers to be voted on in Phase 3.

Phase 3 (February 18-21)
Topic and speaker finalist voting. Voting will end at midnight on February 21.

Phase 4 (February 22-26)
NCTE will contact each speaker to invite them to participate and a final announcement of topics and speakers will be made by February 26.


Rules

1. The Idea: Submit suggestions for the 2010 NCTE Spring Virtual Conference topics and speakers via the NCTE Ning: http://ncte2008.ning.com/forum/topics/shape-the-2010-ncte-spring.
2. Eligibility: This nomination and voting process is open to members of the educational community at large. CONSUMER DISCLOSURE: NO MEMBERSHIP, PURCHASE, OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO PARTICIPATE.
3. Content Limitations: Entries that are lewd, obscene, pornographic, disparaging, or otherwise contain objectionable material will be deleted at NCTE’s sole discretion.
4. Nomination Restrictions: There are to be no Self-nominations. Nomination of commercial content or topics that focus on a single product or service (A corporate representative might be appropriate provided the topic is not the corporation or product that he or she represents).
5. Selection of the "winners": From the top suggested topics and speakers (determined by overall number of votes for each), NCTE staff will narrow the list down to the top 12 topics and speakers (who are available, appropriate, and fit within budget considerations). The overall "winner" will be determined by a final period of public voting.

Tuesday Trivia

1. During early drafts of Gone with the Wind, what was the name that Margaret Mitchell chose for the O’Hara’s plantation before settling on “Tara?”
2. Of the 2200 persons quoted in the current edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, how many are attributed to women?
3. Which award-winning author both participated in (and later coached for) the Philips Exeter Academy wrestling program in Exeter, New Hampshire — a theme that appears in several of his best-selling novels?
4. Which title published eight years before J.K. Rowling’s first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, features a boy named Henry who attends Wizarding School, doesn’t think he has talent, and has a good friend with red hair?
5. Which Young Adult author got her start because she wanted to write the books that she sought out but couldn’t find herself as a child?
   

Last Week's Answers

In 1878, which writer attempted suicide by shooting himself in the chest — an act that did not leave him seriously injured but inspired his uncle to clear his debts?
Joseph Conrad



Which author was rendered nearly blind by an eye illness that forced him to leave school — making his interest in scientific training and medicine impossibility?
Aldous Huxley



There are over 2,700 languages throughout the world, but how many dialects?
There are more than 2,700 languages in the world. In addition, there are more than 7,000 dialects worldwide.


Which medieval word is both the longest word in English that contains only vowels and also is the word with the most consecutive vowels?

"Euouae," a medieval music term, is the longest word in English that contains only vowels. It’s also the word with the most consecutive vowels.

Plain English: The Clash of the Hyphens

The hottest battle in the current grammar wars might be billed as The Clash of the Hyphens. Some of the rules on when to hyphenate are fuzzy and inconsistent. In many instances, there are exceptions to the rule. Most of us have to use the dictionary to figure out how to spell eyewitness, eye shadow, or eye-opener.

The warring factions in the Hyphen War are not the grammarians and English teachers versus the publishers. The grammar authorities and, oddly enough texters, are deleting hyphens. They are battling advertising copywriters, comic book authors, and public relations gurus who are adding hyphens. Right now the use of the hyphen is in flux. Here is how both sides stack up.

Spellcheck on your computer may still tell you to spell avantgarde as avant-garde and grassroots as grass-roots. My Spellcheck caught those words, but did not tell me to hyphenate downsize, breakdown, and cleanup. The trend is to eliminate the hyphen used with prefixes and suffixes. Examples: noncompliance, copayment, semiconscious. Eventually, grammarians run into a hyphen rule that has to do with vowels. Weird spelling may result when you delete the hyphen in words like ultra-ambitious or semi-invalid. The double vowel seems to be okay in words like preemployment and coordinate, but doesn’t work in de-emphasize or co-owner. For some reason we still see hyphens in all words that begin with self (self-assured, self-respect, self-addressed) and ex (ex-wife, ex-con), but no hyphen when a word begins with non (nonmember, nonsupport, nonentity). The trend in texting is to shorten words and sentences and omit punctuation. Online banking has contributed to the demise of the most familiar hyphen rule used when we used to write out checks for “seventy-five” dollars.

On the opposing side are marketing and sales experts who maintain that hyphenated words are eye-catching. Joining words with hyphens creates a visual effect that keeps people reading. In a recent article, “Words with Hyphens that Work Well in Copy and Why” by Michael Collins published in Ezine Articles, the author recommends using the following words as eye-catchers: award-winning, easy-to-use, fool-proof, make-or-break, must-have, no-questions-asked, no-risk, no-money-down, plug-and-play, quick-and-easy, ready-to-go, world-class, one-stop, one-to-one, and high-powered. According to Collins, these hyphenated words “hit all the right buttons” in the reader’s mind. “They interest, intrigue, excite, reassure, guarantee, and convince” customers before they even know what the product is. Collins describes hyphens as “verbal starbursts, golden starbursts that go off like explosions of emotion as the reader reads on.”

Grammarians have a different point of view. As far as they’re concerned, the hyphen is on its way out. There are so many exceptions to the rules on when to use a hyphen that three years ago The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary decided to delete hyphens in 16,000 words. The new SOED lists leapfrog, bumblebee, crybaby, pigeonhole, lowlife, and upmarket. The dictionary retains hyphens for court-martial and other compound verbs, but lists many words separately, including fig leaf, fire drill, ice cream, pot belly, test tube, and water bed. The disappearance of the hyphen has been underway for nearly 200 years. If you browse through Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter or Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, you will see goodbye spelled good-by and today spelled to-day. The original title of Moby Dick was Moby-Dick. Jack London’s The Sea-Wolf still maintains a hyphen.

Who will win the Clash of the Hyphens? My money is on the print publishers who have a track record when it comes to deleting punctuation. To save money on ink, publishers eliminated the semicolon about forty years ago. Today you rarely see a semicolon in a newspaper, magazine, or book. Shovel-ready, two-timer, and start-up are on their last legs. Maybe they will be written as one word or two, but the hyphen will be long gone.

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Mary Jane McKinney is the creator and owner of Grammardog.com LLC, publisher of grammar, style, and proofreading exercises that use sentences from literature. She is a former high school English teacher and dedicated grammarian whose column Plain English appears in several Texas newspapers.

Grammardog.com LLC, P.O. Box 299, Christoval, TX 76935, www.grammardog.com, 325-896-2479, fifi@grammardog.com.

Tuesday Trivia

1. In 1878, which writer attempted suicide by shooting himself in the chest — an act that did not leave him seriously injured but inspired his uncle to clear his debts?
2. Which author was rendered nearly blind by an eye illness that forced him to leave school — making his interest in scientific training and medicine impossibility?
3. There are over 2,700 languages throughout the world, but how many dialects?
4. Which medieval word is both the longest word in English that contains only vowels and also is the word with the most consecutive vowels?

Last Week's Answers

Which American author spent the first forty years of her life in China where her parents were missionaries?


Pearl S. Buck



Which author drafted insults to have on hand in case he ever needed to use them — a list which was discovered and published after his death in 1937?

A E Housman, wrote, “Nature, not content with denying to Mr — the faculty of thought, has endowed him with the faculty of writing” along with a variety of other insults with the name left blank. A complete list was published in Laurence Housman's A. E. H. (1937).


In what year was the first English-language Encyclopaedia Britannica published?

The first English-language Encyclopaedia Britannica published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1771.


How many words are included in the longest book title in the world?

The longest title of a book is 1,433 characters (290 words) and was written by Davide Ciliberti of Italy in July 2007. The book describes the idiosyncrasies of the PR world. The full title is Per favore dite a mia madre che faccio il pubblicitario lei pensa che sono un pierre e che quindi regalo manciate di free entry e consumazioni gratis a chi mi pare, rido coi vips, i calciatori le veline e le giornaliste, leggo Novella e mi fotografano i paparazzi, entro neI privé saltando la coda, bevo senza pagare, sono ghiotto di tartine e gin tonic, ho la casa piena di oggetti di design, conosco Paris Hilton, Tom Ford ed Emilio


What was the first book Amazon ever sold?

The first book Amazon.com sold was Douglas Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought.

Plain English: Sea Change, Fall on One's Sword, and Panglossean

Political pundits sometimes stump their audience with expressions most Americans don’t understand. A few of the expressions widely used by the analysts on the Sunday morning TV round tables have literary origins. Here are three expressions the political analysts love to use:

Sea Change. The pundits say: “When it comes to universal health care, the American people have undergone a sea change.” Sea change means transformation. The dictionary traces the expression back to 1610, to Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Sea change may have been in use before Shakespeare, but once it appeared in his play, Shakespeare got the credit for coining the phrase.

In The Tempest, Shakespeare wrote a beautiful song for the sprite Ariel to sing to Ferdinand who thinks that his father, the King of Naples, has drowned in a shipwreck. Ariel sings the following song meant to console the grieving son by reminding him that death transforms us. Though drowned beneath the ocean, Ariel describes the beauty of the transformation as a sea change into something rich and strange:

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes;

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Ding-dong.

Hark! Now I hear them – ding-dong bell.

(The Tempest, Act I, Scene ii, Lines 397-405)

Fall on One’s Sword. The expression means to kill yourself, to die with honor by your own hand before the enemy captures you. The pundits often use the term figuratively to mean “resign from office.” They suggested that Donald Rumsfeld should fall on his sword or that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should fall on his sword. I’m sure voters in Utah would like to see Senator Larry Craig fall on his sword. To fall on one’s sword is also portrayed in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, and Anthony and Cleopatra, all dramas set in ancient Rome. The expression, however, predates Shakespeare. Committing suicide rather than being captured was a cultural point of honor among Roman soldiers, especially among officers. Suicide was considered honorable rather than cowardly in ancient cultures, and survives today in both Japan and Italy. Japanese and Italian businessmen who have been jailed for stock fraud, for example, commit suicide in order to redeem the honor of their families.

How exactly does one fall on a sword? In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Cassius orders his slave to kill him with the dagger Cassius used to stab Caesar. Brutus, on the other hand, asks a friend to hold a sword while he impales himself on it.

Panglossian. This term means “overly optimistic.” In Voltaire’s Candide, Pangloss is Candide’s tutor whose motto is “all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.” Since Candide is pure satire, someone who is a Pangloss or whose words are Panglossian is a fool who is out of touch with reality. Thus when the pundits describe government reports and forecasts on the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq as Panglossian, they mean that the reports are not only overly optimistic, but naïve, distorted, or flat-out wrong. I have seen Panglossian in headlines in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and heard the expression used often by political analyst George Will.

I taught The Tempest, Julius Caesar, and Candide to hundreds of students in West Texas, so it’s possible that the expressions will continue to be used and understood for at least another generation in America. Or am I being Panglossian? Perhaps there will be a sea change, and English teachers will have to fall on their swords, figuratively speaking, of course.

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Mary Jane McKinney is the creator and owner of Grammardog.com LLC, publisher of grammar, style, and proofreading exercises that use sentences from literature. She is a former high school English teacher and dedicated grammarian whose column Plain English appears in several Texas newspapers.

Grammardog.com LLC, P.O. Box 299, Christoval, TX 76935, www.grammardog.com, 325-896-2479, fifi@grammardog.com.

Shakespeare on Facebook

Another McSweeney's find from Sarah Schmelling and Angela Liao. View the entire image here.

Future of eReading Might Not be iPad, but Blio

According to eSchool News, the iPad may be given a run for its money where the future of eBook readers is concerned. A new, free eReader program called Blio, expected to be available in February, will allow users to read more than a million electronic books on nearly any computer or portable device, with useful abilities like highlighting and annotating text, hearing the text read aloud, and more.

eSchool News reports:

Despite all the buzz about Apple’s iPad tablet and how it could be useful for reading electronic textbooks, a new software program on the way might hold even more promise for education.

Blio, a free eReader program that is expected to be available in February, reportedly will allow users to read more than a million electronic books on nearly any computer or portable device, with the ability to highlight and annotate text, hear the text read aloud, and more.

Blio was announced at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas and is the brainchild of education technology pioneer Ray Kurzweil, creator of Kurzweil Educational Systems and a range of assistive technology products.

Perhaps the software’s most impressive feature is that it can support the original layout, font, and graphics of any book in full color, its creators say. It also can support embedded multimedia such as video and audio, and readers have the ability to highlight, annotate, and share information.

Blio isn’t yet available, but already it’s backed by Baker & Taylor, one of the world’s largest publishers, as well as Elsevier, Hachette, HarperCollins, Random House, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and Wiley. Blio users will have access to more than 1 million books altogether, its makers say—including a large selection of current bestselling titles.

Lisa Galloni, partner relationship manager for Blio, said the software has had tremendous support from publishers because it can preserve any book’s original layout and graphics.

Its flexibility is appealing as well, Galloni said.

“Because it’s not attached to any one device like a Kindle, it’s not restrictive,” she said.

As a user downloads eBooks, these are permanently stored in a personal virtual library, Galloni said. The entire library seamlessly migrates to up to five devices per user, any of which can be mobile.

“What’s great about it is that since all these devices are synched, you can read seamlessly,” she said. “Say I am reading a textbook on page 23, and then I leave my computer and decide to read on the bus via my iPhone. When I click on that book, it will still be on page 23.”

Because all texts are stored virtually, all of the user’s highlights and annotations are saved as well.

Users also reportedly can:

• Create a personalized list of reference web sites, for one-touch lookup of highlighted phrases;
• Adjust reading speed and font size;
• Translate to or from English in an embedded translation window; and
• Insert text, drawings, audio, images, or video notes directly into the content.

These are saved and can be exported to create lists or study materials.

Another feature that could prove useful for assistive and language learning is Blio’s read-aloud function. A synthesized voice can read texts aloud using text-to-speech functionality, synchronized with follow-along word highlighting, so a user can look and listen at the same time.

Amazon.com’s popular Kindle eReader also includes text-to-speech capability, but in a concession to publishers, Amazon requires users to turn on this functionality themselves. Turning on this feature of the Kindle currently requires users to navigate through screens of text menus, which is a problem for users who are visually impaired.

Read more at eSchool New's article, Future of eReading Might Not be iPad, but Blio.