ThunderReaders

If your opinion surfing hasn’t led you yet to one of her articles, let me introduce one of my favorite columnists, Maureen Dowd.  She’s smart, funny, irreverent, and her awareness of language is keen: you can bet the house that she got a “5″ on her AP language exam.

Today’s submission is so good that I could teach a whole unit of analytical vocabulary with it (irony, colloquialism, metonymy, metaphor, cliche, connotation, euphemism, pejoration…on and on).

But for now, just enjoy her voice and her ideas.  See if she doesn’t become one of your favorites too!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/opinion/25dowd.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

I’m sure that any of you checking out our blog is well underway in exploring the Opinion page of the New York Times.  I’m going to start posting my favorite piece of the day, just to start commenting on some of the distinctive “moves” busted by some of these distinguished writers.

You’re welcome to comment on the piece if you’ve read it or to post some of your own “WoDs.”

Today, hands down, is Jerry Seinfeld’s guest contribution about the great stand up comedian George Carlin, who died this week.  Carlin is undoubtedly one of the patron saints of our course on language and rhetoric, right up there with Cicero, Petrarch, Shakespeare, and the rest.  You’ll see why when we study euphemism. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Here’s my favorite line of Seinfeld’s praise for Carlin:  “And he didn’t just “do” it. He worked over an idea like a diamond cutter with facets and angles and refractions of light. ” Hopefully, we’ll be learning to do with varieties of language a little bit of what George Carlin was able to do with his analyses of language, life, and ideas.