Write Right Primer #1: omniveillant

Welcome to Wright Writes Rites Right’s Write Right Primer, the number one source for nonsurgical lexicon augmentation.  Get that voluptuous vocabulary you always wanted—show those boys at your twentieth high-school reunion exactly what they were missing.  And where better to start your training than with the cerebrally well-endowed Michael Chabon?

Source:  http://paperbackleatherbound.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/the_amazing_adventures_of_kavalier_and_clay.jpg?w=316&h=475

Lately, I’ve been harboring a growing intellectual crush on Chabon and his prodigious vocabulary—I’ve yet to get through any of his work without hoisting up my good ole Merriam-Webster—or at the very least the M-W app—and it’s been a fantastic experience for my mental and physical health—have you curled a dictionary lately?   The ever-quotable Mark Twain once mused, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”  In Chabon, lightning strikes twice…or infinitely many times.  He writes so intricately that the end result is truly a thing of beauty—there’s never an instance of faltering diction.  Each word means precisely what it should.  I suggest starting with “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” and working your way on from there.  It is quite the multiple-course endeavor—if you’re looking for bonbons or a nice snack, sample from “Manhood for Amateurs,” his collection of personal essays.  He’ll have your inner lexis bolstered within the first five pages—which is what makes him such a treat.

So, to play the Wal-Mart free sample lady, let me give you a little taste from “Kavalier & Clay” in a miniscule plastic cup with a brief disclaimer—no, you don’t have to be over 18 to partake in this learning experience—did you realize you have to be over 18 or have a parent with you to grab a complimentary Ritz with fancy cheese whiz?  A rant for another time.  Anyway, disclaimer:  this is not a normal word.  This neologism stems from Chabon’s genius and what seems (at least based on his penchant for using other French phrases) to be a strong handle on the French language.  In other words, you won’t find this in the M-W app or the unabridged dictionary you’ve been using as a massive free weight, strengthening your bicep as you developed your vocabulary.  Here’s your dictionary-free Write Right Primer:

omniveillant:  adj.  watching over/looking after all.  “a flaw in the omniveillant maternal loupe.”

Thanks to THEDISCOMF, we know to turn to French when breaking this word down and performing a morpheme postmortem.  Based on prior exposure (omniscient, omnipotent, omnipurpose, omni-etc.), most of us can probably deduce the omni- portion of the show—all.  Veillant is where things get harder.  According to THEDISCOMF, “veiller is a french verb meaning to watch over, to take care. veillant is the present participle, watching over, or taking care.”  On my own foray into Google Translate Land, I found a second definition suggesting an undertone of looking after/caring for, which given the maternal context makes sense.  Bonus word of the day:  loupe:  n.  the tiny magnifying glass generally used by jewelers and watchmakers.

Check back in soon for another installment of the Primer, designed to help you write right and have that lightning strike!

Practice safe text: Use commas. So you don't have to keep any unexpected children away from Rachael Ray.

Hello, all!

Welcome to the premier post on Wright Writes Rites Right, the paramount phonological palindrome (Is that even a thing? Guess we'll find out in a post soon!) with all words also being homophones that form a complete sentence (I may have made that last part up--except for the complete sentence section.  It's definitely a complete sentece.) and a blog on good grammar and eclectica—what that means exactly, well, you’ll have to wait and see.  Rather than go all out on speed-dating-style introductions where I throw my two-minute college-career-future-family spiel on to try to snake charm that phone number out of you, let’s get down to the nitty gritty, what you really want to know:  Is Rachael Ray coming to eat you?

The cover in question.  The poor pup doesn't even know she's got a simmering crock-pot with his name on it.  Souce:  http://blog.newsok.com/gossip/files/2012/06/tailsmag.jpg

If you're like me, when you see this image, immediately after appreciating a lovely literary pun, you grab the phone and dial up the nearest investigative body to delve into Rachael Ray’s apparent newfound depravity.  Whodathunk the lovely Ray hid a cannibal-dog-eater behind her pure-as-EVOO smile?  Why, Rachael, why?  Did culinary ennui lead you to more exotic meats?  No.  No.  No, Rachael.  That’s just wrong.  When you introduced your husband to your mother and she said she’d love to eat him up, she wasn’t being serious!

What’s that?  A misplaced comma?  Rachael really finds inspiration in cooking, her family and her dog?  As in she’s not holding that pooch to gauge his tenderness?  That makes sense.

But the web was already ablaze with the darkly comic image, people chastising Rachael for her poor taste in cuisine—it may cost less than $40 to buy and less than 30 minutes to bake—but that doesn’t make cooking Isaboo right!—or ridiculing Tails magazine for its apparent lack of proofreading skills.

But it’s not that simple.  As with countless other shock photos on the internet, Rachael’s “I-love-cooking-my-family-and-Fido” image was the result of Photoshop gone amok.  And according to Tails founder Janice Brown, like some of the funniest things on the internet (me opining, not her—but seriously, have you seen the Charlie Brown trailer?), the doctored cover began circulating on Funny Or Die almost two years ago.  Roughly a year later, Tails made a public acknowledgement of the editing after receiving flack, and the issue simmered down until the photo went viral again.  That’s the thing with viruses; just when you think you’ve got things under control, there they go again, breaking out and ruining junior prom with Meredith James, who would have kissed you but eww…

The cover is funny regardless of its illegitimate origin.  It made me laugh, which is good—even if it was one of those oh-my-gosh-I-hope-Rachael-isn’t-coming-for-me-what-was-that-noise-outside-the-window laughs.  Laughter burns calories (especially when tied to a fight-or-flight adrenaline rush as you run from a cleaver-wielding Rachael), and I had a rather large dinner tonight that I’d prefer not to see on the scale tomorrow morning.  And no.  I did not find this latest recipe in a Rachael Ray cookbook, though it did call for two cups of Soylent Green.

The true cover.  We never doubted you, Rachael.  Well, not for very long.  Please don't eat us.  Source:  http://www.tailsinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Tails_Oct2010-256x300.jpg

Is it just me, or do you still find the corrected cover disconcerting, just not for the same reasons as before?  Would it have been too hard for Tails to establish parallelism by writing “her cooking, her family and her dog”?  Might have saved them a bit of trouble when debunking the clever online memer behind man- and dog-eater Rachael because “finds inspiration in her cooking her family and her dog” flows less well without the comma than the current viral sensation.  But let’s be honest.  The scariest thing about seeing the real cover is realizing the mischievous Photoshopper removed a perfectly good Oxford comma.  That’s downright terrifying.

Folks, the commas are free, they're everywhere, and you don't even have to go to the student health clinic to pick them up.  Don't become another statistic.