Perhaps you remember this (slightly sanitized) linguistic exchange between Ray “Bones” Barboni (played by Dennis Farina) and Chili Palmer (John Travolta) in the movie Get Shorty (1995):

Barboni: Let me explain…

sweet fuck all. Amounting to nothing or very little

Wow what a waste, i did SFA this weekend.

Any Blogora readers get word yet about whether their 4C’s panel was accepted? I think its possible that only graduate students have received notice since the email I received was mainly about applying the 4C’s Chars’ Memorial Scholarship. But maybe the acceptance emails when out as well?

I wish rhetoric didn’t have such a bad reputation. Sometimes I Google the word just to see what that day’s rankings are, and usually it’s the Wikipedia or dictionary entries on the top of the list. But today, while enjoying the oh-so-brief cool of a South Carolina morning (the only time I can drink a hot coffee these days), I saw this blogger’s post “Rhetoric can kill.” It’s about the power of words, specifically the power of liberal rhetoric, that (perhaps) led to the Tennessee church shooting.

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A version of this might help make NCA bearable.

So my dearest buddy and colleague, John McKenzie, sent me this link tonight, and I cannot get over it:

“We’re familiar with drug testing for athletes, but officials at the Beijing Olympics will be taking things one stage further and examining competitors whose sex is in doubt…Read the story HERE.”

A phrase that is used when someone is offended by something you said. This phrase then removes all the offensiveness of the previous statement, making it all good.

Ryan: That chick has nice tits!

Rob: Damn, that’s my sister!

Ryan: I’m just sayin’

Rob: Oh, okay, it’s cool.

“Lies have long legs: they are ahead of their time. The conversion of all questions of truth into questions of power, a process that truth itself cannot escape if it is not to be annihilated by power, not only suppresses truth as in earlier despotic orders, but has attacked the very heart of the distinction between true and false, which the hirelings of logic were in any case diligently working to abolish. So Hitler, of whom no-one can say whether he died or escaped, survives.” Minima Moralia, 109

The Juice has posted a useful draft of an encyclopedia article on “Agency” on his blog. (I apparently believe in “dialectical agency”–nice to have a label finally.) As I gear up to teach a graduate course on presidential rhetoric (for the very first time) this fall, I am pondering what seems to be the problematic twin of agency, namely “effect,” which has dogged us since Wichelns named it back in 1925.

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Slate’s Jack Shafer discusses the fact that nothing sticks to Obama. He rejects the thesis that the press is soft on Obama by pointing to stories about Reverend Wright, Obama’s compromise on an energy bill that reportedly benefitted a donor, his relationship with Tony Rezko, and many more. Shafer then asks:

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The owner of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., died in 1918, six years before his newspaper vanished in a merger with the New York Tribune. But in…

When you are walking past someone in close proximity and your body parts touch theirs. Thus, making you feel uncomfortable.

1) Dude, that guy so just brushed the horse up on me.

2) Did that guy just brush the horse? I swear I felt his fupa on my back when he passed by me.

A collection of the current CW on vice-presidential choices. Gov. Kaine of VA appears to be leading the Obama list at the moment. I don’t see how that’s a good idea, but speculation is cheap, so here’s my suggestion: a one-off (no second term), end-the-war VP for Obama: Anthony Zinni. Beats McCain on militariness and gravitas. And: he’s an Italian-American. OK, have at me. Any better ideas?

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visible clumps of nose goblins, often found clinging to nasal hair.

"you need to blow your nose, you got some serious bats in the cave!!"

I suppose we’ve flogged this topic to death by now, but “Dr.” Savage’s radio network has issued a disclaimer/apologia of sorts:

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Philadelphia Reflects on Who is an American

Some people had a very specific idea. Ed Bezik of Latrobe, Pa., says an American is someone who speaks English. “When you’re in this country, you should speak this country’s language. We should not have to change to accommodate you,” Bezik says.

Independence Park Ranger Tom Degnen concedes that the United States doesn’t always live up to its own ideals. But he says an American is someone who keeps trying anyway.

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As language maven Richard Lederer has shown (or showed) in his poem “Tense Times With Verbs,” irregular verbs in English are delightfully unpredictable:
Today we speak, but first we spoke;
Some faucets…

Doing something that is a complete waste of effort and time for which you can expect no results and may even backfire on you.

Telling the president that invading other countries is unpopular with many voters is like pissing in the wind.

In the spirit of the mile high club, but for those who couldn’t afford the plane tickets so are just taking the train.

Me and my girlfriend thought we would join the ranks of the prestigious mile high club, but had to take the train home instead. We went for the meter high club instead, but forgot that they can throw you off a train a lot easier than a plane.

Why should somebody with a blemished personal history be said to have a Chequered past?

The ancient Greeks believed a race of people lived in the Hyperborean realms, beyond the north wind.

A cellcert is a concert transmitted via cell phone. A cellcert happens when a person dials a friend and hold up his or her cell so said friend can enjoy the show.

Since I wasn’t at the concert in NYC, my friends let me share in the moment by giving me a cellcert.

Opposing Views is a new website that seems like it would a great tool for teachers of rhetoric, speech, and composition. From the FAQ:

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From NPR:

In the last couple of months, bloggers on both ends of the political spectrum have been railing against Congress’s rewrite of FISA — the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

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THIS might be a good classroom exercise when covering the Greek’s eulogies…you know, like after reading Thucydides’ eulogy on the Peloponnesian War…

In a response to a call from Slate.com, readers share their obituaries for about 600 of Starbuck’s U.S. stores:

5435 S. Cooper St., Arlington, Texas

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It’s sorta like the Madden Curse, but way more accusatory in tone…

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For many of us, the hardest part of writing is getting started. Even after we exhaust our rituals of procrastination (checking email, playing FreeCell, resizing icons), there’s the
challenge of…

Much tamer than "Fuck me boots" because the heel is shorter and less spikey. It is merely an invitation to ask me out and see how it goes. While less sexy than FMB they are much sexier than "Ignore me boots".

Dude, did you see Amy today? She has her ask me out boots on, I think I will.

Right wing blogger, Dr. Melissa Clouthier (form chiropractor turned blogger) saw this poster for Obama’s speech in Berlin:

and it reminded her of this image:

So she put the two images next to each other on her blog. She added what I’ll call a “just sayin” claimer:

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adj. The stage in fat accumulation when fabric can no longer contain the enormity of one’s buttocks.

Jesus, I can’t zip up these jeans anymore - I’ve reached critical ass!

As I mentioned before, the British Sociological Association’s Theory Study Group hosted a conference in London almost three weeks ago on the events of May 1968.

The conference was truly excellent. Here are a couple of brief mentions from my graduate student perspective:

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Homophones, as you probably know (not no), are words that are pronounced the same but differ in meaning and usually spelling. Understandably, they rank high on our list of Commonly…

The anticipation one feels when waiting for a response to a text message.

I just texted her for a date – but now the textpectation is killing me.

For those of you who aren’t Pittsburgh Pirates fans (er, I’m assuming this is the majority of you), check out this story for an explanation of my title.

I read a lot of blogs, but I don’t read a lot of comments. In fact, The Blogora and my own blog are the only places where I really pay attention to comments. This disregard for comments is probably the reason I don’t understand this post by The Valve’s Bill Benzon about shutting down comment threads that had gone off topic:

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Someone who spends all their time on the computer surfing the net or playing games. Similar to couch potato.

You spent seven hours on the internet creating meanings for words on urban dictionary? Wow, You’re such a mouse potato

Readers of classic mythology and modern science fantasy will be familiar with the concept of shapeshifting: changing from one form (say that of a human) to another (a frog, for…

When you regularly flirt with an acquaintance or friend but do no more.

1. Rick and Julie flirt whenever they are together, but they’ve never gone out. They aren’t in any sort of relationship, merely a flirtationship.

2. Bob has only one girlfriend, but starts a flirtationship with almost every girl he meets.

Call for Papers
Service-learning in the Composition Classroom

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This is a less offensive way of saying "Jesus Christ"

It originated with the movie ‘The Faculty’. In the real version, one of the characters exclaimed "Jesus Christ!" but in the edited TV version, they had it changed to "Cheese and rice!"

Guy #1: Aliens landed on Earth!

Guy #2: Cheese and rice!

The viciously right-wing talk show host Michael Savage tells us autism is a fraud. I have a few used diapers I’d like to send him if anyone has his address:

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Noggin is slang for the head; recent research shows it to have been 18th century boxing slang.

Slanging match is slang of the late 19th century, based on the verb slang.

A modern weird word, a Doryphore is a pedantic critic, but also a figurative colorado beetle.

v. Expression used by rough older British blokes to describe taking a really big piss when they’ve not been to the bathroom for a while.

"Dave - hold on a second. If I don’t Empty a Leg right now I’m gonna piss myself!".

"No worries, mate."

What someone would say to insinuate that it was their style, or that it was the way they usually do things.

Yo man so did you already hit it or what?

Yeah, you know that’s how I roll.

Since I’m in the midst of moving, I’m a little late on this. But Derek Mueller is hosting a “CCCarnival” for Karen Kopelson’s article in the latest issue of CCC: “Sp(l)itting Images; or, Back to the Future of (Rhetoric and?) Composition.”

I’m going to jump in to the discussion either today or tomorrow, but head over to earth wide moth for more details.

Novelist Stephen King should know a thing or two about fear. “Good writing,” he says, “is often about letting go of fear and affectation. . . . Good writing is…

A female ‘friend’ who shows no outward interest in you, but will go all out to prevent you from hooking with other women by slagging you behind your back.

I was so ready to hook up with the sheila, but annie date shielded me.

I thought some of you would be interested in this story about file sharing of PDFs of textbooks. I found the story on FARK, and while I know the comment thread is long, it’s worth reading; it’s remarkable, some of the ingenious scams these students and former students have concocted to save money on books. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: it’s time to make textbooks affordable.

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For some reason (perhaps because my recent work is working at a high level of abstraction) I’ve started putting diagrams in manuscripts. The problem is: they don’t look very good. I’ve been using the arrows/boxes feature in Word to do them. Is there a better way, o jedi rhetoric textmasters?

This is way cool. The Berkley Center at Georgetown has set up the The Faith 2008 Database. It “tracks religious rhetoric in the campaign by candidate and theme, and features historical and international comparisons.” (Every now and then I think we rhetoricians might we winning. I cannot imagine such a prestigious university center using the term “rhetoric” this way twenty years ago.)

Adjective. Popular on the outside, poopy on the inside.

Everyone likes Ben but he’s a real asshole. I guess he’s just poopular.

Mamihlapinatapai.

From the Chronicle — an interesting power play for control over intellectual property:

In what appears to be a new policy, the American Psychological Association will require authors who publish in its journals to let it deposit their papers in open-access repositories — and it will charge them $2,500 to do so.

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This from HigherEd.com:

Blackboard, the dominant player in course management software, has the ability to inspire devotion and, for the more fervid open-source adherents, not a little contempt. So today’s announcement may cause a stir among those more apt to liken Blackboard to the devil than a gentle giant: The company is partnering with Syracuse University to develop a way to integrate Blackboard with Sakai, one of the primary open-source alternatives.

The whole story

Short form of good looking out, meaning "thank you"

"Yo you gave ol’ girl my number for real? Good lookin’."

When it comes to descriptive writing, I’m a sucker for a good list (or series)–any playful hodgepodge of dizzying details that can stir a person or place to life through…

a get-together consisting of close friends, partying and drinking.

We’re having a kickback at Trent’s house for the homecoming alumni.

Andrea Foster at the Chronicle’s Wired Campus Blog notes that YouTube is making cheating easier. The video she points to shares how to cheat using a Coke bottle, and Foster notes that this particular strategy “works only if students can have beverages with them when they’re sitting for exams.”

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a particular lure used in the sport of fishing that has a superior quality above others with its class.

ie. to use such a lure

I better win now, I’ve been masterbaiting all day long!!!!

I’m reading two scholarly books this week, Georg Simmel’s classic The Philosophy of Money (highly useful as one watches the second biggest bank collapse in US history and the impending bailout of Sallie Mae/Freddie Mac) and Alan Blum’s neglected classic Theorizing (which has some remarkable thoughts on rhetoric which I may blog about later). For recreation, I’m working my way through John Updike, who had a huge influence on me in my adolescence (especially Pigeon Feathers and The Centaur) but whom I haven’t read in years.

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The US slang Finagle, which can mean to obtain something dishonestly, turns out to be English regional dialect.

The biggest problem with Chthonic, once you’ve worked out how to spell it, is how to say it.

The act of breaking the tether that AT&T has on your iPhone.

Once I jailbreak my iPhone I can use my T-Mobile card to make calls anytime I want.

A fascinating legal study of how the technicalities of McCain’s birth in the Canal Zone may mean he is not a “natural-born citizen,” as the Constitution requires. I find these kinds of debates fascinating rhetorically, because they illustrate the tensions between legalist views of language and popular common sense as well as the limitations of strictly textualist or originalist approaches to the document.

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I made a vow after July 4 not to blog any more about Mr. Bush until after November, but here’s one last bit of frat-boy antics to report, especially since it seems to be getting no coverage in the USMSM.

I, like other civil libertarian types, have been disappointed in Obama lately, but this
comment by Lawrence Lessig makes me feel better. There is an odd strain (perhaps via Obama’s fondness for Reinhold Niebuhr, on whose books I cut my own political teeth) of Burkean (Edmund) conservatism in Obama that makes him quite distinctive in US politics.

A cell phone which copies the look and features of an iPhone.

I heard that Samsung is coming out with an iPhoney this summer.

I have a question for you writing teachers/technology wizards (the two terms seem almost synonymous these days): I generally prefer to work with hard copies of papers, dissertations, etc., but, since many students and others whose work I comment on are not in close physical proximity to me, I have to send comments electronically. I am not entirely comfortable with the comments feature in Word, perhaps because of lack of experience (I didn’t even know it existed until very recently). What would you think are the best ways to comment on student text electronically?

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Lee Drutman has a good review in the July 5 LA Times of a book with a really long title. In fact, since I am on the internets so often doing the google and other stuff, this title is actually longer than my attention span enables me to read.

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The difference between the almost-right word & the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning-bug & the lightning.

Mark Twain’s well-known observation (offered in a letter…

The condition of somebody that is unable to deal with life, usually found sitting around a neglected apartment with bad hair and bad outfit.

I saw Kenny at our high school reunion, he’s still living with his parents and saving up for a camaro …totally self helpless.

I have written about the micro-blogging tool Twitter before. John Culberson is a Texas Congressman who uses both Twitter (see his Twitter page here) and Qik (a video streaming tool) to communicate with constituents.

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Someone Else’s Problem

I thought we would have problems with that project, but it’s SEP now that the manager has been fired.

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I’ve spent more time than I probably should over the years defending the intellectual contributions of conservatives like Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley. But it’s hard to maintain much sympathy for what passes as “conservatism” in the US after the obituaries for Jesse Helms this past week (whose death on July 4, in the company of Adams and Jefferson, indicates that the Almighty occasionally has a nasty sense of humor). I had been collecting some, but the incomparable hilzoy over at Obsidian Wings

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When the sales team at Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary posts its annual list of “new” words, it’s easy to wax cynical. After all, a word usually has to ripen on the…

A controversial process of extracting otherwise-secret information from a friend or co-worker by getting them drunk and thereby loosening their control on their tongue.

The guys at work took me out drinking last night. After quite a few beers and a lot of questions I finally let slip that I was going to be a father. What can I say? Beerboarding should be against the law.

Mr. Bush gave a speech at Monticello on July 4th, and quoted from Thomas Jefferson:

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Whoop! Debra Hawhee points it out. And, in case you didn’t know, both Philosophy and Rhetoric and Rhetoric & Public Affairs are on Project Muse. (I wonder if anyone at NCA has considered how to link with JSTOR, or if the Taylor & Francis octopus prevents that.)