9/26/2023 0 Comments Duly noted with thanks![]() ![]() Thank-you notes from children go a long way toward smoothing away the impression that all they care about is themselves, but it does nothing to change the fact that all they care about is themselves. ![]() Left to their own meager devices children or anyone else will accept all kinds of offerings as no more than their due without the least thought of expressing genuine pleasure in them, much less simulating pleasure when there is none as a way of showing appreciation for the spirit of the giver, if not for the item chosen." "This, unfortunately, does not come naturally. "The purpose of a thank-you letter is not only, as some people seem to believe, to force a payment in labor in exchange for a present, but to allow the giver to know that his generosity has been appreciated," writes Judith Martin, in her book "Miss Manner's Guide to Rearing Perfect Children." The story might attract that person out there looking for an ambitious choir to sing with for a leisure activity.Thank-you notes are a great pain for the doer and the enforcer and, though I am sure the receiver is delighted and draws optimistic conclusions about the character of the young writer and the reverence for old values evident in the writer's mother, I fear something crucial is lost in this transaction: the relationship between generosity and gratitude. We do appreciate your time and effort for our organization. It captured the wonderful diversity of the group. I'm hoping we just made a typo - and that we really know the difference between the noun fjord and the verb ford.Īnd, given that a fjord refers to "a narrow inlet of the sea bordered by steep cliffs," I'll go out on a limb and surmise that Ross County, indeed, doesn't have any.ĭispatch: Thank you so much for the great article on Capriccio! ("Singing up a storm," Thursday, Life & Arts, Page D1). I doubt there are any fjords in Ross County, Ohio! Thus, we probably shouldn't be using it much.ĭispatch: I enjoyed the comments last Saturday concerning deserts and desserts.īut when my wife called my attention to an article at the bottom of Page A1 recently ("Rain to give way to 90-degree heat," June 5), I really had to laugh.Īuthorities in Ross County were asking anyone coming through the county "not to try to fjord the water on the roads because they may be washed out underneath." The expression means "to use an argument that assumes as proven the very thing one is trying to prove." Yet, as James Kilpatrick has pointed out a time or two: "This is not at all what 'to beg a question' has meant for the past 400 years." The men's-room wall at Jackie O's Pub and Brewery in Athens begs one question : Should penmanship be taught at Ohio University?Īll of the examples underscore how the expression has been corrupted to mean "to raise a question." That reason, among others, begs the question: Would Patrick or any other budding open-wheel star, including Graham Rahal of New Albany, be better-served by staying in IRL or jumping to the big money and unrivaled popularity of NASCAR? It begs the question: Are we prepared to vote for another candidate for the presidency who has no foreign-affairs experience, as Bush did when he was elected? Turns out that we need to do some "educationalizing" on this one - and not just among our Sports brethren. ![]() Leo: Your e-mail compelled me to search our archives for "beg the question." ![]() Thanks for defending the English language. For example, the repeated misuse of "beg the question" in the Sports section calls for a re-Įxamination of the credentials of the reporters. I wish that more of your colleagues at The Dispatch would analyze their word and phrase usage. The Now You're Talking discussion last week about the origin of the idiom "just deserts" inspired feedback about other matters of English, the language we sometimes misuse and abuse.įew of the letters were complimentary (anyone seeing a pattern here?!), as they pointed mostly to errors detected in The Dispatch.īut, hey, I'm thinking that any and all criticism was intended constructively.Īnd, as such, it's worth sharing as another "lesson (or two) of the day":ĭispatch: My belief is that whoever crafted the "just deserts" headline did so with a smile, knowing that many people spell the word incorrectly.īecause the article was about a pastry chef, desserts would come to mind and deserts, the proper word, would seem out of place. ![]()
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