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

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.