#491 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Tuesday October 25)
Good morning,
A potpourri Tuesday from readers…
MOVIES EVOKING AN ERA
After my list of movies that evoked a time and place, or which highlight a state, there were several other suggestions:
Scott Sandler. “It’s a very specific time and place. I always felt the San Fernando Valley of the 80s was captured in the original The Karate Kid.”
Adam Torson. “You skipped North Dakota. I guess the best one would be Wooly Boys, but that one is pretty terrible. For New Jersey, The Many Saints of Newark and Jersey Boys."
Howard Kroll. “Fyi, the plane chase scene in North By Northwest was in Illinois. Also, I would throw in On The Waterfront and American Hustle for New Jersey.”
EDUCATION IS EVERYTHING
Bob Lameres shares that the best way to reduce crime is to reform the education system: “You simply will not find a 13 year old B+ student running down a Chicago alley at 2am with a gun.”
Bob proposes the following template for the progression of education (the words, including capitalization, are his own):
Grades 1-6 reading, writing, grammar, ARITHMETIC.
Grades 7-9 Now you have minds who can appreciate history, science, music/art and literature. Grades 10-12 civics, financial literacy, HOW TO DRIVE, advance placement and trade skills.
College is where you go to be exposed to everything controversial. If a student has been taught [these skills], college should shock and stimulate young minds so they realize there’s a whole world of ideas they have never been exposed to and the next four years will be far more impactful then any jaunt on Space X would be.
GRAMMAR, REDUX
David Rochkind provides two grammar notes:
1. “My maternal grandmother Bea attended Hunter College in the 30’s and was a NYC elementary schoolteacher for 50 years. She told me how even in NYC with its large Jewish immigrant population it was very difficult for her to obtain a teaching position due to quotas and bias. I wanted to share that but that isn’t my point in mentioning her. Bea disliked the use of pronouns and would correct me when I would say “he” or “she” and told me to use their given names. She, I mean Bea, would be so lost today.”
2. “My sister continues to overuse literally. I think you had a musing on its overuse last year. For whatever reason, I recall literally coming into the vernacular (it that is a phrase) about five years ago. Most people overused it and then it went into the ether like many catchwords do but not for her. She uses it every fifth or sixth sentence and it makes my skin crawl.”
Ed Weiss also has some grammatical observations (in his words):
1. People misuse "myself" when they should use “me.”
2. “Again” is also a misused word when the speaker is not actually referencing something already said, often trying to sound more erudite than they are. As a kid I noticed Steve Garvey improperly doing this. The grammar of people who are in professional speaking positions or where they just should know better is atrocious—"him and me" as subjects of a sentence, for example....
3. Irregardless -- not actually a word. It is a conflation of regardless (an actual word) and irrespective (also an actual word). Again, used by people trying to sound more sophisticated than perhaps they actually are.
4. People way over-use "right," in order to sound smart
5. People saying “Print.” Would-be Carl Icahns trying to sound like Wall Street or Central Bank economic insiders.
Have a great day,
Glenn
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