Summit of Babel

Night is a
time for deep, probing thoughts, and a couple of midnights ago the
semanticists on the copy desk lobster trick* turned up a disturbing
little fantasy. It all started when slotman Robert Smith viewed with
alarm certain trends in the language.

"Suppose at a summit
conference," he brooded, "one of our lads who had been brainwashed by
Madison Avenue lingo became carried away with his own oratory and said
something like, "Togethernesswise, we should strive for common aims."

TOGETHERNESSWISE,
obviously, would throw the translator into a tailspin. Can't you
visualize him, clutching desperately at verbal straws, trying to
interpret it? It is conceivable that whatever came through would be the
opposite of togetherness to the point that Nikita would rush to the
phone to alert his bombers.

Togethernesswise might also curdle
our British friends, who have a paternal feeling toward the language,
to the extent that they might seriously consider climbing down off the
summit.

Where would we all be then? Brinkwise.

::

WHEN THE CASE of
Love vs. Love (Vera Mac and Charles) was called in divorce court
Wednesday, Atty. Eve M. Mack announced, "We are ready, your honor. We
thought the case would be settled and had hoped love would prevail but
–" Amid laughter, the case was postponed.

::

ABSOLUTE
Be active; keep busy
Whatever you do
For time is a thief!
It steals from you.
— G.C. McHose

::

STRANGE TALES about the jet transport keep filtering through, indicating there's nothing the jet age can do about the weather, either.

After
several hours' wait here because of fog in the East, Bob Graydon took
off on a night flight to New York, intending to return by way of
Cleveland, where he also had business.

In the morning the pilot
announced the N.Y. weather was still bad and they were landing in
Detroit until it cleared. After a four-hour wait there Bob decided to
skip Gotham and go on to Cleveland and asked that his luggage be
removed from the parked plane. Impossible, he was told, only L.A. and
N.Y. have the special equipment to unload the 707. So his captive bags
went to Idlewild** and caught up with him the next day in Cleveland.

::

A BIRD WATCHING
reader who found the remains, mostly feathers, of a bird in his yard is
indignant and wants a campaign to keep cats on leashes during the bird
mating season. That's crazy talk, friend; the cat lobby would tear you
to pieces.

::

CORONET'S***
article on baseball club owners spying on players to make certain they
don't misbehave relates an incident about a National League first
baseman. He was suspected of knowing too many bookies, and a pretty
girl operative was put on his trail. Although warned about her by
fellow players, he began dating her and in her next report to the front
office she wrote: "Have kept in close contact with subject. He's no
longer interested in horses."

::

AT RANDOM — A
TV drama the other night, reports Viola Swisher, had this disclaimer:
"The characters, events and facts in this play are fictitious."
Fictitious facts? … Traffic stopped in both directions on 6th Street
near Alvarado at 7:15 a.m. yesterday as one staggering drunk led
another staggering drunk slowly across the lined crosswalk. The blind
leading the blind, mused David Gottlieb, one of the motorists … How
married can you get? A husband confides that shortly after retiring at
11 p.m. his wife poked him in the back and asked, "Is your stomach
growling or is that the back doorbell?"

* This satirizes a 1950s
fad — spurred by Madison Avenue — of adding the suffix "-wise" to
words. The lobster trick probably refers to the "lobster shift," which
was the overnight shift.

** Idlewild airport was renamed for John F. Kennedy after the president was assassinated in 1963.

*** Coronet was a popular, small-format magazine that competed with Reader's Digest and ceased publication in 1971.