“Various and Sundry, 12-13-10”
* Two popular figures of the early 80’s, actor Leslie Nielsen and football broadcaster Don Meredith died in past few weeks. Tributes to their lives typically focused on their famous quotes: Nielsen’s “I am serious…And don’t call me Shirley” from the comedy classic movie “Airplane!” and Meredith’s singing of the Willie Nelson tune, “Turn out the lights, the party’s over” as his signature way of signaling the competitive end of games during his celebrated stint on “Monday Night Football.”
* Slate’s Juliet Lapidos explores the history of the ubiquitous word “OK” in her review of Allan Metcalf’s new book “OK: The Improbable History of America’s Greatest Word.” Los Angeles Times writer Ann Powers reflects on the use of the phrase, “Me love you long time,” which was first used in the 1987 movie “Full Metal Jacket,” before having a remarkably enduring and growing popularity, as evidenced by its use in two new songs. Metcalf’s article is an interesting perspective, but Powers strays into language police, context tone-deafness.
* Like millions of others, I will be spending much of the next few weeks watching college football bowl games, including some of the Rose Bowl, commonly described as the “Grandaddy of Them All.” According to the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, this phrase emerged in the early 1900s and means, “the first, oldest, and most respected of its kind.” I have long associated these words with longtime ABC college football announcer Keith Jackson, but they were trademarked by the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association in 1976, thirteen years before Jackson ever announced a Rose Bowl.
