Corona | Coming Attractions

I needed a reason for a 1300th post.

We were going to make a 1300 Club, but we thought it would be unlucky, so we skipped straight to a 1400 Club. Then we thought about how people might think that would be like a double shot of 700 Club, so we skipped to whatever the hell we skipped to. Or something. Fuck it. 

Goiter finds your lack of 8000 more posts disturbing.

I was watching this clip of Dustin Hoffman on an episode of What's My Line? from the late sixties, and Meredith MacRae, one of the panelists, mentioned that her boyfriend looked like Dustin Hoffman. She then said her boyfriend's name was Greg Mullavey, and that he was also an actor.

I took a chance and figured maybe this Greg Mullavey (I misspelled it as "Malavey" at first, and was happy to have the correct spelling suggested by Google) was big enough to have been in some stuff. I looked up some pictures of him from the era, and I'll be damned if young Greg Mullavey didn't look a good bit like Young Dustin Hoffman.

They no longer look anything alike.

I guess 'The Simpsons' is airing its 500th episode, or recently aired it, or some such, and people are using this as another of the intermittent excuses for mass remembrance of when the show was good. Deadspin put up this article looking back at the making of the classic episode 'Homer at the Bat'. It's not particularly well written, but there's interesting content. It's funny to me that a couple of the voice actors hated the script for apparently (according to the writer, at least) being inconsistant with the show up to that point (the complaint about Lisa was funny and strange, I thought, because her character would be inconsistant in just the same way the writer claimed she was in this episode for the rest of the series run (at least as far as I watched it, which was up to season 12 or thereabouts); maybe this was the first time they went that route with her).

That was a great read. Ah, back when Simpsons was funny....

I noticed that the guy who wrote the article said "bona fides."

 GCSE Latin and A Level Law tells me that is Latin for 'good faith'.  A Latin master like the Roman soldier from Life Of Brian tells me this is different from 'In good faith'.

What of it?

That article about The Simpsons uses the word in a way that makes it seem like the meaning of the expression should be "credentials."

That's how it's being used.

Apparently, some usage guides (according to dictionary.com, at least) are critical of it being used this way, since "fides" is singular in Latin, and it's getting used like a plural in English.

You won't find this if you look up "bona fide" on dictionary.com. You actually have to look up "bona fides." Seems like it's one of the new buzzwords article writers are using these days.

Here's the usage note on the dictionary.com entry:

dictionary.com wrote:

Bona fides is originally a Latin phrase meaning “good faith.” Fides is singular in Latin and has been used as such in English. At least partially because its -es ending makes bona fides look and sound like a plural, it has developed the plural sense “credentials.” This plural use, although criticized by some usage guides, has been increasing in recent decades in all varieties of speech and writing.

I'm all for letting languages grow. I tend to err on the side of not offending usage guides (save for jokey informality or conscious stylistic choices), though, so it's often the case that I don't embrace something until pretty much everybody's at least somewhat OK with it.

In my line of work we insist on 'Bona Fide Sub-Contractors'. Real term from the office.

Your workplace isn't trying to impress anyone. It's just doing its job.

Daltons chin dimple wrote:

In my line of work we insist on 'Bona Fide Sub-Contractors'.

Would they be okay with Sub-Bona Fide Contractors?

Might lead to a subpoena file.

Mal Shot First wrote:

Would they be okay with Sub-Bona Fide Contractors?

You know, kinda like Barny Stinson in his job at GNB, I am not entirely sure if anyone would notice one way or another.

In that case, I'm your man!

Another great The Onion headline for which Thursty will not be able to read the associated content: Nation Refuses To Read Headline Beyond Words '4-Year-Old-Girl Forced To'.  I really didn't think the article would be able to match the headline at all, but it wasn't bad.

The Onion wrote:

"First of all, it was right on the front page, and you just know there isn't going to be anything good about a 4-year-old kid on the front page," said Kathy Wortham, 39, a Providence, RI receptionist and mother of two. "I only read it to the word 'Girl,' and that was more than enough for me. I knew there wasn't a verb in the English language I would have been able to handle after that."

After being informed the next word was "Forced," a cringing Wortham paused before replying, “Well, I hope she stops being forced to do whatever it was she was being forced to do. If it’s not too late, that is. I’m sure it will all work out!”

In addition to not reading the entire headline, the majority of Americans said they also would not engage in any speculation as to the article’s content, because there was no possible ending to the headline they could conceivably tolerate, other than "Go To An Amusement Park" or "Brush Her Teeth"—highly unlikely topics for new stories, they grudgingly admitted.

The Onion wrote:

Members of the Associated Press, where the headline originated, said they too were anxiously waiting for the no doubt emotionally devastating story to pass through the news cycle.

"I really can't blame anyone for not wanting to read that whole headline; when the article came across my desk, I myself got to the words "4-Year-Old Girl Forced To," immediately signed off on it, and had it sent out over the wire," AP senior editor Mike Siegel said. "Since then, I've been keeping myself busy editing articles about unlikely animal friends."

"Did you know a female dog in Missouri adopted a litter of piglets?" Siegel continued. "Ha, ha, ha! No little girls being forced to do anything in that story!"

I notice that Extremlely Loud & Incredibly Close, one of the movies that was up for best picture this year, is currently rated a rousing 47% at Rottentomatoes.

Isn't that some sort of 9/11 romantic movie? Not interested.

All I know is Tom Hanks is in it.

Is that what gave it a BWONG?

Extremely Long and Incredibly Shit, as somebody here called it.

You're the only one here who would call it that, Dalty. "Incredibly Shit" is an obvious Britishism. There's Jakester, of course, but he seems to have backed off with the Britishizing, thanks to my relentless and cruel mockery.

I think something like twenty reviewers succumbed to the temptation to let a play on "Extremely _____ and Incredibly _____" be part of their representative blurb for the movie. There's no telling how many of them used one somewhere in their review, but were kind enough not to use one in their RT blurb.

This is pretty wild.

I've experienced this effect when my phone glitched and started spitting my own words back at me with a slight delay. It's almost impossible to keep talking without taking the phone away from my ear and talking at it like I'm on speakerphone.

Someone should use that at the next presidential debate.