The Lexicographer's Rules

“It’s not quite unplugged (he has tiny microphones taped to his feet), but unlike most Irish shows, there are no pre-recorded taps. Every rapid-fire volley of sound coming from those magical feet is live.”

I know about as much about Scottish politics as I do birds in Borneo, but I’ve read two interesting articles about the the legal victory of Tommy Sheridan, a Socialist politician, over the yellow rag News of the World.

The writing at both links seems to credit Sheridan’s wife, Gail, with the victory. Andrew Hagan at the London Review of Books takes a slightly elevated view of the affair, noting the oddity of having a plaintiff cross-examine his own wife. For a longer and more interesting look, Scotland on Sunday has a crew of writers covering all the angles, including a short history of the affair and paragraph after paragraph about Gail.

Some of my enjoyment of the event comes from the plain, good writing it has generated, but a lot of it has to do with Sheridan being the last politician on the planet who speaks plainly. Also, the journalists don’t fail with clever use of different registers of speech. (Though I wonder if I read the Scottish papers every day whether I’d think the stories full of clichés and typical faux-colorful Scots English.)

My friend Al has launched a site for inflatable sheep. I sense a great disturbance in the Force.

My new favorite blog: Bags in Trees. I found it because it links to my entry for witches’ knickers.

So everybody knows about the woman who was told she couldn’t have a license plate with the letters “NWTF” on it. I read in many places that this is because that stands for “Now What the Fuck.”

I dispute that NWTF is any kind of established initialism or acronym meaning “Now What the Fuck.” In fact, outside of stories about this particular incident and Acronym Finder—which claims it stands for Now What the Freak (polite form), intending, I suppose, to avoid the word “fuck"—I find no uses of it anywhere on the Internet. Nowhere.