Today is the anniversary of the The Late Show with David Letterman which premiered on CBS on August 30, 1993. Letterman had previously spent eleven years as the host of Late Night with David Letterman, but after he was passed over as the host of the The Tonight Show when Johnny Carson retired, he signed a multi-million dollar deal to move to CBS. This put him in direct competition with Jay Leno, who took over for Johnny on The Tonight Show.
Many aspects of Letterman's show follow the basic pattern of the late night talk show genre, established and perfected by Johnny Carson. Letterman has added a few new wrinkles of his own that have become staples of his show and focus points for his fans.
One of Letterman's trademarks is "found comedy": people, places, and things found on the streets of the city that become the subject of Letterman's ironic wit. These consist of actual items found in the newspaper, viewer mail, "stupid pet and human tricks" performed on the show, esoteric videos, or person on the street interviews (1).
But perhaps Letterman's best know feature is his nightly Top Ten List. Based on a topic from current events, each list counts down ten hilariously warped responses. The very first list, for example, featured TOP TEN WORDS THAT RHYME WITH "PEAS":
10. Heats
9. Rice
8. Moss
7. Ties
6. Needs
5. Lens
4. Ice
3. Nurse
2. Leaks
1. Meats
While this was probably not the funniest top ten list, it is interesting to note that the Top Ten began on a poetic note.
Today's Challenge: TOP TEN TOP TENS
Below are some of the list topics from David Letterman's first book of Top Ten Lists. Select one of the topics and try your hand at comedy writing. Visit the Top Ten List Archive for inspiration. You can also create your own topic and list, or visit The CBS Lateshow with David Letterman website and enter the weekly Top Ten List Contest.
1. Top Ten Ways Life Would Be Better If Dogs Ran The World
2. Top Ten Ways To Pronounce "Bologna"
3. Top Ten Unsafe Toys for Christmas
4. Top Ten Prom Themes
5. Top Ten Questions Science Cannot Answer
6. Top Ten Things We As Americans Can Be Proud Of
7. Top Ten Interview Questions Asked Miss America Contestants
8. Top Ten Reasons To Vote
9. Top Ten Reasons Why TV Is Better Than Books
10. Top Ten Rejected Provisions Of The U.S. Constitution
Quote of the Day: Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today?
1) Writing his memoirs of the Civil War.
2) Advising the President.
3) Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin.
--David Letterman
1 - LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN. The Museum of Broadcast Communications
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/L/htmlL/latenightwi/latenightwi.htm
2 - Letterman, David and the "Late Night with David Letterman Writers. The Late Night With David Letterman Book of Top Ten Lists. New York: Pocket Books, 1990.
Showing posts with label numbers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label numbers. Show all posts
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Hawaii 5-0 Day
Today is the anniversary of the date that Hawaii became the fiftieth state of the Union. President Dwight D. Eisenhower presided over a White House ceremony welcoming the Aloha State on August 21, 1959. The following is an excerpt from the New York Times story on Hawaii statehood:
Hawaii Becomes the 50th State; New Flag Shown
Washington, Aug. 21, 1959 -- Hawaii was officially proclaimed as the fiftieth state of the United States today by President Eisenhower at bipartisan White House ceremonies.
The Presidential action was followed immediately by the unfurling of a new fifty-star flag, which will not become official until next July 4. The thirteen alternate red and white stripes remain unchanged, but the stars on a field of blue are arranged in nine alternate staggered rows of six and five stars each.
The President welcomed the new state along with Alaska, admitted earlier this year. Not since 1912, when Arizona and New Mexico were added to the Union, had any new states been admitted (1).
Known as the Aloha State, Hawaii consists of a chain of 122 volcanic islands, but only seven are populated:
Hawaii (the Big Island)
Maui (the Valley Isle)
Lanai (the Pineapple Isle)
Molokai (the Friendly Isle)
Kauai (the Garden Isle)
Niihau (the Forbidden Island)
Oahu (the Gathering Place)
The state capital is Honolulu on the island of Oahu, which is also its largest city (2).
On the day when American reached 50, it seems appropriate to look at things that come in 50s. an Internet search yielded a variety of topics related to things that come in 50:
1. 50 States: A site that provides facts about all fifty states, such as state birds, state songs, and state flags.
2. 50 Things: A site started in 1998 that discusses things that are worth saving in the new millennium.
3. My50: Allows visitors to create a list of 50 things to achieve in their lifetime.
4. 50 Things Every Guy Should Know How to Do: Celebrity and Expert Advice on Living Large: A book on Amazon.com.
5. Fifty Word Fiction: A blog devoted to stories that are only fifty words long.
6. 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover: The lyrics of the Paul Simon hit.
7. 50 Reasons to Oppose Fluoridation: The Fluoride Action Network seeks to broaden public awareness about the toxicity of fluoride compounds.
8. Fifty Reasons that Golf is Better than Football and Baseball: A list by Rick Woodson of the Rochester Business Journal.
9. National Geographic Traveler's "50 Places of a Lifetime": A list of great places at a web site full of all kinds of different lists.
10. 50 Ways to Love Your Liver: Tips for maintaining a healthy liver.
Today's Challenges: Three for Fifty
Challenge 1: Write a 50-Word Abstract
Writing a summary to an exact word count is an excellent exercise in revision. Select a news or magazine article of interest, and write a summary of the article's key points in 48-50 words -- that's no less than 48 words and no more than 50! Don't try to go for an exact word count on your first draft; instead, wait until you have a draft to work with. Revise your draft so that every word counts. Use varied sentences and transitions to connect your ideas and sentences.
Challenge 2: List of 50
Look at the 10 links provided in this post that have to do with 50s. Use them for inspiration to create your own list of 50: 50 reasons, 50 ways, 50 best, 50 worst, 50 things, 50 anything.
Challenge 3: First 50
This is a creative writing exercise inspired by Natalie Goldberg, the author of Writing Down the Bones. Pick a topic and start writing. Just write, don't judge, edit, or stop. Get at least 50 words down on paper before you look back at what you have written. You might do it with a friend or group of friends. Pick a common topic, write, and compare your compositions. If you are really ambitious, select one topic for each letter of the alphabet and create an Encyclopedia of Fifty-Word Topics. For more on this technique, see the First 50 Words website.
Quote of the Day: It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context - no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese. --Carl Sagan
1 - http://gohawaii.about.com/od/hawaiianhistory3/a/admission_day.htm
2 - Aloha State Day. Those Were the Days.
http://www.440.com/twtd/t082106.html
Hawaii Becomes the 50th State; New Flag Shown
Washington, Aug. 21, 1959 -- Hawaii was officially proclaimed as the fiftieth state of the United States today by President Eisenhower at bipartisan White House ceremonies.
The Presidential action was followed immediately by the unfurling of a new fifty-star flag, which will not become official until next July 4. The thirteen alternate red and white stripes remain unchanged, but the stars on a field of blue are arranged in nine alternate staggered rows of six and five stars each.
The President welcomed the new state along with Alaska, admitted earlier this year. Not since 1912, when Arizona and New Mexico were added to the Union, had any new states been admitted (1).
Known as the Aloha State, Hawaii consists of a chain of 122 volcanic islands, but only seven are populated:
Hawaii (the Big Island)
Maui (the Valley Isle)
Lanai (the Pineapple Isle)
Molokai (the Friendly Isle)
Kauai (the Garden Isle)
Niihau (the Forbidden Island)
Oahu (the Gathering Place)
The state capital is Honolulu on the island of Oahu, which is also its largest city (2).
On the day when American reached 50, it seems appropriate to look at things that come in 50s. an Internet search yielded a variety of topics related to things that come in 50:
1. 50 States: A site that provides facts about all fifty states, such as state birds, state songs, and state flags.
2. 50 Things: A site started in 1998 that discusses things that are worth saving in the new millennium.
3. My50: Allows visitors to create a list of 50 things to achieve in their lifetime.
4. 50 Things Every Guy Should Know How to Do: Celebrity and Expert Advice on Living Large: A book on Amazon.com.
5. Fifty Word Fiction: A blog devoted to stories that are only fifty words long.
6. 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover: The lyrics of the Paul Simon hit.
7. 50 Reasons to Oppose Fluoridation: The Fluoride Action Network seeks to broaden public awareness about the toxicity of fluoride compounds.
8. Fifty Reasons that Golf is Better than Football and Baseball: A list by Rick Woodson of the Rochester Business Journal.
9. National Geographic Traveler's "50 Places of a Lifetime": A list of great places at a web site full of all kinds of different lists.
10. 50 Ways to Love Your Liver: Tips for maintaining a healthy liver.
Today's Challenges: Three for Fifty
Challenge 1: Write a 50-Word Abstract
Writing a summary to an exact word count is an excellent exercise in revision. Select a news or magazine article of interest, and write a summary of the article's key points in 48-50 words -- that's no less than 48 words and no more than 50! Don't try to go for an exact word count on your first draft; instead, wait until you have a draft to work with. Revise your draft so that every word counts. Use varied sentences and transitions to connect your ideas and sentences.
Challenge 2: List of 50
Look at the 10 links provided in this post that have to do with 50s. Use them for inspiration to create your own list of 50: 50 reasons, 50 ways, 50 best, 50 worst, 50 things, 50 anything.
Challenge 3: First 50
This is a creative writing exercise inspired by Natalie Goldberg, the author of Writing Down the Bones. Pick a topic and start writing. Just write, don't judge, edit, or stop. Get at least 50 words down on paper before you look back at what you have written. You might do it with a friend or group of friends. Pick a common topic, write, and compare your compositions. If you are really ambitious, select one topic for each letter of the alphabet and create an Encyclopedia of Fifty-Word Topics. For more on this technique, see the First 50 Words website.
Quote of the Day: It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context - no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese. --Carl Sagan
1 - http://gohawaii.about.com/od/hawaiianhistory3/a/admission_day.htm
2 - Aloha State Day. Those Were the Days.
http://www.440.com/twtd/t082106.html
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
August 8: Dollar and Cents Day
Today is the anniversary of the Continental Congress' establishment of the monetary system of the United States. The year was 1786, and the ordinance called for U.S. coins with the following names: mill, cent, dime, dollar, and eagle.
According to Bill Bryson in Made in America, bankers and businessmen wished to maintain the English system based on pounds and shillings, but Thomas Jefferson devised a distinctly new system based on dollars and cents.
The name dollar comes from a town in Bohemia called Joachimstal. A coin made there in the 1500s, the Joachimstaler, spead throughout Europe evolving from the taler, to the thaler, to the daler, and finally into the dollar.
The name dime comes from the French dixieme which means tenth. It was originally spelled disme and pronounced as deem.
The name cent comes from the Latin centum which means one hundred. The unofficial name penny comes from the Latin term pannus which means "a piece of cloth"; at one time these pieces of cloth were used for money.
The name mill comes from the Latin millesimus which means thousandth. A mill would have represented 1/1000 of a dollar; however, the federal government never minted the mill coin. The lowest denomination of coin ever created was a 1/2 cent piece.
The eagle was a $10 coin.
The missing coin from the 1786 ordinance, common today, is the demomination that represents 1/20 of a dollar: the nickel, named for the metal from which is was made (nickels never were made of wood) (1).
Today's Challenge: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
Dollars and cents are certainly important in America, so important that many expressions contain references to money, such as fast buck, more bang for the buck, and pass the buck. The term buck has been slang for dollar since the mid-1800s, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. See if you can find the English idioms that fit in the sentences below; they all have to do with dollars, dimes, or cents. The literal definition of each expression is also given as a clue.
1. A virtual certainty: It's _____ _____ _____ that the team will make the playoffs.
2. To be absolutely sure: You can _____ _____ _____ _____ that he will be at the party.
3. Unexpected good fortune. I didn't think I would get a $500 rebate on my new car. When I got the check, it was _____ _____ _____.
4. Stingy about small expenditures and extravagant with large ones. Dean clips all the coupons for supermarket bargains but insists on going to the best restaurants; he's ______ _____ _____ _____ _____.
5. So plentiful as to be valueless. Don't bother to buy one of these -- they're a _____ _____ _____.
6. To inform on or betray someone. No one can cheat in this class -- someone's bound to _____ _____ _____ and tell the teacher.
7. Take action and end delay. It's time this administration _____ _____ _____ _____ and came up with a viable budget (2)
Quote of the Day: There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either. ~Robert Graves
Answers: 1. dollars to doughnuts 2. bet your bottom dollar 3. pennies from heaven 4. penny wise and pound foolish 5. dime a dozen 6. drop a dime 7. got off the dime
1 - Bryson, Bill. Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States. New York: Perennial, 1994.
2 - Ammer, Christine. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997
According to Bill Bryson in Made in America, bankers and businessmen wished to maintain the English system based on pounds and shillings, but Thomas Jefferson devised a distinctly new system based on dollars and cents.
The name dollar comes from a town in Bohemia called Joachimstal. A coin made there in the 1500s, the Joachimstaler, spead throughout Europe evolving from the taler, to the thaler, to the daler, and finally into the dollar.
The name dime comes from the French dixieme which means tenth. It was originally spelled disme and pronounced as deem.
The name cent comes from the Latin centum which means one hundred. The unofficial name penny comes from the Latin term pannus which means "a piece of cloth"; at one time these pieces of cloth were used for money.
The name mill comes from the Latin millesimus which means thousandth. A mill would have represented 1/1000 of a dollar; however, the federal government never minted the mill coin. The lowest denomination of coin ever created was a 1/2 cent piece.
The eagle was a $10 coin.
The missing coin from the 1786 ordinance, common today, is the demomination that represents 1/20 of a dollar: the nickel, named for the metal from which is was made (nickels never were made of wood) (1).
Today's Challenge: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
Dollars and cents are certainly important in America, so important that many expressions contain references to money, such as fast buck, more bang for the buck, and pass the buck. The term buck has been slang for dollar since the mid-1800s, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. See if you can find the English idioms that fit in the sentences below; they all have to do with dollars, dimes, or cents. The literal definition of each expression is also given as a clue.
1. A virtual certainty: It's _____ _____ _____ that the team will make the playoffs.
2. To be absolutely sure: You can _____ _____ _____ _____ that he will be at the party.
3. Unexpected good fortune. I didn't think I would get a $500 rebate on my new car. When I got the check, it was _____ _____ _____.
4. Stingy about small expenditures and extravagant with large ones. Dean clips all the coupons for supermarket bargains but insists on going to the best restaurants; he's ______ _____ _____ _____ _____.
5. So plentiful as to be valueless. Don't bother to buy one of these -- they're a _____ _____ _____.
6. To inform on or betray someone. No one can cheat in this class -- someone's bound to _____ _____ _____ and tell the teacher.
7. Take action and end delay. It's time this administration _____ _____ _____ _____ and came up with a viable budget (2)
Quote of the Day: There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either. ~Robert Graves
Answers: 1. dollars to doughnuts 2. bet your bottom dollar 3. pennies from heaven 4. penny wise and pound foolish 5. dime a dozen 6. drop a dime 7. got off the dime
1 - Bryson, Bill. Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States. New York: Perennial, 1994.
2 - Ammer, Christine. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997
Saturday, August 04, 2007
August 4: Top 100 Day
Today is the the anniversary of the introduction of Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart. The first number one song on the chart was Ricky Nelson's "Poor Little Fool."
Prior to August 4, 1958, Billboard had separate charts for Most Played By Jockeys, Best Sellers in Stores, and Most Played in Juke Boxes. The new Hot 100 list combined the Best Sellers and the Most Played By Jockeys lists into a single chart. Because Juke Boxes were becoming less popular, their numbers were not included.
The linguistic equivalent of Billboard's Hot 100 would have to be Word Spy's Top 100 Words . Created by technical writer Paul McFedries, Word Spy is a web site devoted to neologisms. Neologisms are new words -- words that have appeared in print multiple times, but that are not in the dictionary.
Word Spy gives the arm chair linguist a peek behind the lexical curtain. Visiting this web site is a little like watching a preseason football practice: you get to see all the players (words) on the field, but you're not sure which ones will make the final cut. In the case of neologisms, the final cut is making it into the dictionary. The lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary do their work behind the scenes, and most neologisms have the life span of the common house fly. In contrast, Word Spy makes lexicography democratic: you get to see all the words, it's free, and McFedries even accepts reader submissions.
Here are a couple of examples for neologisms from Word Spy:
aireoke (air.ee.OH.kee) n. Playing air guitar and singing to prerecorded music; playing air guitar in a public performance. Also: air-eoke. [Blend of air guitar and karaoke.]
Manilow method n. The discouragement of loitering in public places by broadcasting music that is offensive to young people, particularly the songs of singer Barry Manilow.
In addition to words and definitions, Word Spy also provides pronunciations, citations, and notes on each word. WARNING: Reading this site can become addictive! (2)
Today's Challenge: Brave New Words
See if you can match up the 8 neologisms from Word Spy with the 8 definitions numbered below.
freegan
buzzword bingo
godcasting
NOPE
Google bombing
Drink the Kool-Aid
fauxhawk
male answer syndrome
1. n. A person or attitude that opposes all real estate development or other projects that would harm the environment or reduce property values.
2. n. A hairstyle in which a strip of hair across the top of the head is longer and higher than the hair on the remainder of the head.
3. n. A person, usually a vegan, who consumes only food that is obtained by foraging, most often in the garbage of restaurants, grocery stores, and other retailers.
4. v. To become a firm believer in something; to accept an argument or philosophy wholeheartedly or blindly.
5. n. Setting up a large number of Web pages with links that point to a specific Web site so that the site will appear near the top of a Google search when users enter the link text.
6. n. The tendency for some men to answer a question even when they don't know the answer.
7. n. A word game played during corporate meetings. Players are issued bingo-like cards with lists of buzzwords such as paradigm and proactive. Players check off these words as they come up in the meeting, and the first to fill in a "line" of words is the winner.
8. pp. Podcasting an audio feed with a religious message (2).
Quote of the Day: The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express. --Alexis de Tocqueville
Answers: 1. NOPE: (Not On Planet Earth) 2. fauxhawk 3. freegan 4. Drink the Kool-Aid5. Google bombing 6. male answer syndrome 7. buzzword bingo 8. godcasting
1 - This Day in History - Entertainment - August 4. The History Channel
http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?month=10272960&day=10272969&cat=entertainment
2. wordspy.com
http://www.wordspy.com/topwords.asp
Monday, July 23, 2007
July 23: Grand Slam Day
Today is the anniversary of Tiger Woods' victory at the 2000 British Open. Woods won by shooting a record 19 under par at the course in St. Andrews, Scotland.
Read more about what this historical event has to do with the English language.
Read more about what this historical event has to do with the English language.
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