BooksPosted by Tim on June 18, 2006 at 8:11 AM
Pick a category.
Music: I’ve fallen inot listening to ambient music at work. It’s relaxing, helps me focus, and it totally disappears in the background. It’s also great on an iPod on the bus or a place when you’re trying to read. I’ve been listening to an old Brian Eno disc and the second side of Moby’s last album. Am I listening to “good” ambient music? How would I know? Discuss.
Grammar: My NPR station goes out of its way to use the possessive case to describe temperature - “it’s cloudy and we have 93 degrees and 100% humidity”. Is this correct usage for a physical property? Why? It’s making me crazy. Bonus: What is up with the New Yorker using umlauts diaeresis on words like coördinate. Can they be stopped?
June 18th, 2006 at 8:22 am
As a former proofreader, I’d like to opine that “we have 93 degrees and 100% humidity” is moronic. It’s a lame attempt (that I think may have started with the local TV weather gurus) to jazz up a recitation of dry facts.
As far The New Yorker goes, they’re being prissy, but correct. Although, I just looked up coordinate on Merriam Webster online and they could get through the opeing two syllables without dotting the place up.
June 18th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
I sent an e-mail to Bill Walsh, whose grammar blog we posted about earlier in the week. He says: That’s just folksy patter. “It is 93 degrees” is right.
The answer to the bonus is elucidated in greater detail than we need here. An extra bonus for the explanation of the ridiculous heavy metal umlauts.
You are 2 for 2, Herman.
June 24th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
I have also become a fan of the ambient music at work & while reading. (yes, notwithstanding my lack of posts, I occasionally read.) But same issue — is what I am listening to “good”? Some of it is for sure: e.g., Thievery Corporation, St. Germain. Other stuff, not so sure. Perhaps there’s a blog out there that would keep us ITK?
June 24th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
We’ll have to swap ambient CDs sometime and see if we can figure out what’s wack. I guess if you were in the middle of something and stopped to hit the skip button to get to the next song - you might be listening to “bad” ambient. I like listening to it when I read as well. Especially if I am on an airplane and all those a-holes around me are yammering on their cell phones, etc.