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Question: How do former-friends-turned-ideological-enemies break the ice before a meeting?
Answer: Just like everyone else. They tell Bush jokes.
A North Korean general opened the proceedings of a South-Korean military meeting with the following laugher:
Bush goes out jogging one morning and, preoccupied with international affairs, fails to notice that a car is heading straight at him.
A group of schoolchildren pull the president away just in time, saving his life, and a grateful Bush offers them anything they want in the world as a reward.
“We want a place reserved for us at Arlington Memorial Cemetery,” say the children.
“Why is that?” asks Bush.
“Because our parents will kill us if they find out what we’ve done.”
Har, har, har. Very funny, Mr. General, although I’d like to point out that the same joke has been circulating on the internet since at least 2002. (Proof: this link takes you to a webpage archived on February 11, 2002. But perhaps the internet has just reached North Korea…)
- As Ellen so kindly (and vexingly) pointed out, Natalie Portman and Norah Jones are co-starring in a new movie, My Blueberry Nights. Throw in that new girl from Grey’s Anatomy, and we’ll call it a flick.
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Question: How much was Bill Clinton paid to deliver the University of Michigan’s 2007 commencement address? (Cue mandatory link to self here.)
Answer: Perhaps aside from travel expenses, I think nothing.
I do know that CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour spoke sans fee in 2006 (although she was given an honorary degree), that Middlebury roped Clinton into speaking for free at commencement this year, and that Clinton has not charged for previous graduation engagements in 2006 at Princeton, Tulane and Texas. I also know that Bloomberg has reported that the former president’s “graduation speeches are customarily given free of charge.” These reports, along with circumstantial, internet-esque (i.e., unreliable) evidence (see comments) here and here, lead me to believe Clinton spoke for free—especially as he has received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.
(Interestingly, Clinton could turn this this commencement business into quite the cottage industry. Bloomberg also reports that “Clinton earned $7.5 million for speaking 43 times in 2005, an average of $174,419 a speech.” No word yet as to if Clinton receives any health benefits in addition to speaker’s fees [a joke!].)
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Opine-ing. From the University of Michigan’s very own Juan Cole:
Remember that we’re all concerned, as we should be, about these events at Virginia Tech today. In Iraq this is a daily event. Imagine how horrible it would be if this kind of massacre were occurring every single day.
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If any of my seven daily blog readers (no, seriously, that’s the actual number) had not noticed, Google released a brand-new engine to power its searches. Called “Universal Search,” the new algorithm will “blend listings from its news, video, images, local and book search engines among those it gathers from crawling web pages.”
This announcement is quite irrelevant except for the fact that the query “bill clinton michigan commencement” places (as of 5.18.07) my video third on Google’s PageRank. Weird. (Credit to Andrea, too.)
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Grammar fun. Yay!.
Question: When do you use anyway, anyways, and any way?
Answer:
EnglishPlus says “The compound word anyway is an adverb meaning regardless.” Any way is simply the word way modified by the word any. It means any manner or any method.”
Now this brief commentary has been exciting and all, but what about one of the the black sheeps of prescriptive linguists—anyways?
Well, our American Heritage Dictionary calls the word “Nonstandard. In any case.” In a usage note of the same dictionary, the AHD’s lexicographers say anyways “raises Standard users’ eyebrows nearly everywhere else [except the South] in all speech and is unacceptable in Edited English.” Even the ultimate reliability in scholarly work, Wiktionary, discourages the use of anyways in formal speech or writing. Ouch.
To summarize, you should ignore the prohibitive conventions of English diction, take a stand against linguistic stricture, and utilize anyways as much as possible. Happy scribing, and super good.
You must check out the “Grammar Girl” site and subscribe to her podcasts. It provides analysis of both the confusing ordinary conundrums as well as the simply quirky aspects of standard English usage. Exactly the thing for those who are somewhat obsessed with/thrilled by the intricacies of speaking and writing…like you and me. http://grammar.qdnow.com/
i love that i know where i am sitting in relation to you as you filmed that clinton video…. (since i was sitting right next to you).
man, that was a great commencement!