7 ms·

Eleanor Roosevelt's son authored mysteries in which his mother solves murders

72 points by BerislavLopac 6y ago

gumby 6y ago
I am infuriated by the idiotic use of “authored” rather than “wrote” but in this case, as they were ghostwritten, perhaps it’s actually in some sense correct! (Stomping off now to be pissed off at the odious use of “gift” as a verb)
- ponker 6y ago
  Gift has been used as a verb maybe as long as it has been used as a noun. If you read some older British literature it's all over the place.
  - gumby 6y ago
    I didn’t say it might not be well attested, I said its use is odious. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/12/gifting-is-not-a-verb/383676/ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/12/gi... And anyway its Germanic root now means “poison”.
    - umanwizard 6y ago
      That article is hundreds of words to say “I subjectively dislike the word ‘gifting’, on aesthetic grounds”. What’s the big deal? All words are, ultimately, made up.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  Difference between Author and Writer http://www.differencebetween.net/business/difference-between-author-and-writer/ http://www.differencebetween.net/business/difference-between...
- harry8 6y ago
  Verb all the nouns! I gotta coffee then bookshelf the cup for later while keyboarding my thoughts as a part of internetting for the morning. You can brain this gifting from me to you! Thanks, I hate it too.
  - gumby 6y ago
    For verbing to truly weird language we should try using them for other parts of language like adverbs and articles!
    - tiaa 6y ago
      (Stomping off now to be pissed off at the odious use of “*wert-” as an adjective)
  - dgfitz 6y ago
    Did you google it?
  - lionsdan 6y ago
    "Verbing weirds language" https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/01/25 https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/01/25
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      Verbing is super cool! English being my second language, the casualness of verbing is my favorite feature of it! In Polish, you can technically verb nouns too, but it's frowned upon to do it on your own.
- tlb 6y ago
  Hopefully, your comment will incent headliners to avoid humbugging you. I like the word "author" (~ authority) as the verb to describe the process of exerting control over, and taking credit for, the writing of something they didn't actually write. The art world also needs such a verb for the artist who supervises his assistants as they do all the actual painting/sculpting/glassblowing in the master's style.
  - wahern 6y ago
    In copyright law I believe it's the same word: author. Indeed, the notion that authorship subsists in the person with creative control is typically explained by way of a hypothetical painter, photographer, or sculptor.
- tiaa 6y ago
  I think the ability to arbitrarily verbify a noun is a powerful and desirable language feature.
  - webmaven 6y ago
    > I think the ability to arbitrarily verbify a noun is a powerful and desirable language feature. Verbing weirds language.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - kiddico 6y ago
      But it weirds so well!
    - tiaa 6y ago
      Its definitely possible to abuse good (or neutral) language features to produce intentionally obfuscated or unclear sentences. The etymology of the word 'weird' here is interesting. I think its rootest-of-roots was actually a verb. I think language just naturally allows verbification or other shifts when it 'feels' rights, and when there isn't another term that should clearly be used instead.
      - kiddico 6y ago
        > The etymology of the word 'weird' here is interesting. I think its rootest-of-roots was actually a verb. Ooooh, thank you for that rabbit hole/etymology adventure! For any others interested: weird (adj.) c. 1400, "having power to control fate, from wierd (n.), from Old English wyrd "fate, chance, fortune; destiny; the Fates," literally "that which comes," from Proto-Germanic wurthiz (source also of Old Saxon wurd, Old High German wurt "fate," Old Norse urðr "fate, one of the three Norns"), from PIE wert- "to turn, to wind," (source also of German werden, Old English weorðan "to become"), from root *wer- (2) "to turn, bend." [https://www.etymonline.com/word/weird https://www.etymonline.com/word/weird]
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Although you make a fair point, there are more important things to be angry about, or alternatively we may have found life on venus so go and be not-angry about that.
  - webmaven 6y ago
    > Although you make a fair point, there are more important things to be angry about, or alternatively we may have found life on venus so go and be not-angry about that. Your casual dismissal of an entirely legitimate gripe which I do not share has enraged me quite unreasonably[0]. shakes fist As for the (currently hypothetical) venusians, the existential proof — should it be forthcoming after (if?) probes are sent — may ultimately have a greater societal impact through expansion of the synbio toolbox rather than the implications for the Drake equation and Fermi paradox. We definitely seem to be living in interesting times. I wonder... does that make it more likely that we are living in a simulation? [0] In an entirely abstract sense, that is.
    - Cro_on 6y ago
      The more intricate and symmetrical everything appears to me makes me increasingly sure(er) about the simulation. But don't talk about it too much, their end goal of the experiment could be to discover the point at which a conscious entity realises that its world is fabricated. big letters appear in the sky: GAME OVER CONTINUE? 3, 2, 1...
- grawprog 6y ago
  This comment you've authored seems rather emotional. The usage of the word authored is not incorrect. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/authored https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/authored Unless the Cambridge dictionary's definition is flawed? >to write a book, article, etc.: He has authored more than 30 books. >to create something: The deal is being authored by a Greek diplomat.
  - stephenhuey 6y ago
    My Merriman-Webster app says it was first used as a verb in 1597. And gift was used as a verb about half a century before that! At some point old fogies complaining about the youngsters’ slang just need to let it go...
- MichaelMoser123 6y ago
  Makes sense, Orwell advised to prefer short words over long and pretentious ones, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Lan...
- ponker 6y ago
  I feel like there should be a word for what would be pedantry if it was informed, but instead coming from a thoroughly ignorant point of view.
082349872349872 6y ago
In WASP circles mysteries are classier than fanfic. Imagine if he'd shipped Anna Eleanor with Lyudmila Mikhailovna! https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/eleanor-roosevelt-and-the-soviet-sniper-23585278/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/eleanor-roosevelt-and... Edit: Yes, "ship" is fanfically verbed. Hate the language, not the writer. (I find it amusing that a forum which runs to multiple pages on relationships such as Oracle/TikTok or Arm/Nvidia doesn't appreciate mentions of relationships more along the lines of Twilight Sparkle/Rainbow Dash.) Edit2: Give ship a few more years, and it may pick up some prepositions with distinct meanings. "Him? He just ships around" or "With you? Not in a thousand years! Ship off!" (but not "*I'm shipping up to Boston").

72 points by BerislavLopac 6y ago

I am infuriated by the idiotic use of “authored” rather than “wrote” but in this case, as they were ghostwritten, perhaps it’s actually in some sense correct! (Stomping off now to be pissed off at the odious use of “gift” as a verb)

ponker 6y ago
Gift has been used as a verb maybe as long as it has been used as a noun. If you read some older British literature it's all over the place.
- gumby 6y ago
  I didn’t say it might not be well attested, I said its use is odious. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/12/gifting-is-not-a-verb/383676/ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/12/gi... And anyway its Germanic root now means “poison”.
  - umanwizard 6y ago
    That article is hundreds of words to say “I subjectively dislike the word ‘gifting’, on aesthetic grounds”. What’s the big deal? All words are, ultimately, made up.
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
Difference between Author and Writer http://www.differencebetween.net/business/difference-between-author-and-writer/ http://www.differencebetween.net/business/difference-between...
harry8 6y ago
Verb all the nouns! I gotta coffee then bookshelf the cup for later while keyboarding my thoughts as a part of internetting for the morning. You can brain this gifting from me to you! Thanks, I hate it too.
- gumby 6y ago
  For verbing to truly weird language we should try using them for other parts of language like adverbs and articles!
  - tiaa 6y ago
    (Stomping off now to be pissed off at the odious use of “*wert-” as an adjective)
- dgfitz 6y ago
  Did you google it?
- lionsdan 6y ago
  "Verbing weirds language" https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/01/25 https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/01/25
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Verbing is super cool! English being my second language, the casualness of verbing is my favorite feature of it! In Polish, you can technically verb nouns too, but it's frowned upon to do it on your own.
tlb 6y ago
Hopefully, your comment will incent headliners to avoid humbugging you. I like the word "author" (~ authority) as the verb to describe the process of exerting control over, and taking credit for, the writing of something they didn't actually write. The art world also needs such a verb for the artist who supervises his assistants as they do all the actual painting/sculpting/glassblowing in the master's style.
- wahern 6y ago
  In copyright law I believe it's the same word: author. Indeed, the notion that authorship subsists in the person with creative control is typically explained by way of a hypothetical painter, photographer, or sculptor.
tiaa 6y ago
I think the ability to arbitrarily verbify a noun is a powerful and desirable language feature.
- webmaven 6y ago
  > I think the ability to arbitrarily verbify a noun is a powerful and desirable language feature. Verbing weirds language.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - kiddico 6y ago
    But it weirds so well!
  - tiaa 6y ago
    Its definitely possible to abuse good (or neutral) language features to produce intentionally obfuscated or unclear sentences. The etymology of the word 'weird' here is interesting. I think its rootest-of-roots was actually a verb. I think language just naturally allows verbification or other shifts when it 'feels' rights, and when there isn't another term that should clearly be used instead.
    - kiddico 6y ago
      > The etymology of the word 'weird' here is interesting. I think its rootest-of-roots was actually a verb. Ooooh, thank you for that rabbit hole/etymology adventure! For any others interested: weird (adj.) c. 1400, "having power to control fate, from wierd (n.), from Old English wyrd "fate, chance, fortune; destiny; the Fates," literally "that which comes," from Proto-Germanic wurthiz (source also of Old Saxon wurd, Old High German wurt "fate," Old Norse urðr "fate, one of the three Norns"), from PIE wert- "to turn, to wind," (source also of German werden, Old English weorðan "to become"), from root *wer- (2) "to turn, bend." [https://www.etymonline.com/word/weird https://www.etymonline.com/word/weird]
mhh__ 6y ago
Although you make a fair point, there are more important things to be angry about, or alternatively we may have found life on venus so go and be not-angry about that.
- webmaven 6y ago
  > Although you make a fair point, there are more important things to be angry about, or alternatively we may have found life on venus so go and be not-angry about that. Your casual dismissal of an entirely legitimate gripe which I do not share has enraged me quite unreasonably[0]. shakes fist As for the (currently hypothetical) venusians, the existential proof — should it be forthcoming after (if?) probes are sent — may ultimately have a greater societal impact through expansion of the synbio toolbox rather than the implications for the Drake equation and Fermi paradox. We definitely seem to be living in interesting times. I wonder... does that make it more likely that we are living in a simulation? [0] In an entirely abstract sense, that is.
  - Cro_on 6y ago
    The more intricate and symmetrical everything appears to me makes me increasingly sure(er) about the simulation. But don't talk about it too much, their end goal of the experiment could be to discover the point at which a conscious entity realises that its world is fabricated. big letters appear in the sky: GAME OVER CONTINUE? 3, 2, 1...
grawprog 6y ago
This comment you've authored seems rather emotional. The usage of the word authored is not incorrect. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/authored https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/authored Unless the Cambridge dictionary's definition is flawed? >to write a book, article, etc.: He has authored more than 30 books. >to create something: The deal is being authored by a Greek diplomat.
- stephenhuey 6y ago
  My Merriman-Webster app says it was first used as a verb in 1597. And gift was used as a verb about half a century before that! At some point old fogies complaining about the youngsters’ slang just need to let it go...
MichaelMoser123 6y ago
Makes sense, Orwell advised to prefer short words over long and pretentious ones, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Lan...
ponker 6y ago
I feel like there should be a word for what would be pedantry if it was informed, but instead coming from a thoroughly ignorant point of view.

082349872349872 6y ago

In WASP circles mysteries are classier than fanfic. Imagine if he'd shipped Anna Eleanor with Lyudmila Mikhailovna! https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/eleanor-roosevelt-and-the-soviet-sniper-23585278/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/eleanor-roosevelt-and... Edit: Yes, "ship" is fanfically verbed. Hate the language, not the writer. (I find it amusing that a forum which runs to multiple pages on relationships such as Oracle/TikTok or Arm/Nvidia doesn't appreciate mentions of relationships more along the lines of Twilight Sparkle/Rainbow Dash.) Edit2: Give ship a few more years, and it may pick up some prepositions with distinct meanings. "Him? He just ships around" or "With you? Not in a thousand years! Ship off!" (but not "*I'm shipping up to Boston").