SIs and the WSJ.

In the middle of an excellent article in the Wall St Journal today, about how Citadel decided to bail out E*trade, there was this sentence:
"It is a humiliating comedown for E*Trade and its now-deposed chief executive, Mitch Caplan, who failed sufficiently to anticipate the impact of mortgage failures. "
To me, this sentence with its clumsy positioning of 'sufficiently' is very inelegant. I'm surprised, I'd expect to see this clumsy avoidance of a split infinitive in an English newspaper, but the US papers have been mercifully free of this. They seem to abide by the rule that if avoiding the SI makes the sentence too clunky or unnatural, you should just use it. Fowler calls this idea about avoiding split infinitives altogether a 'superstition', and Gowers calls it a 'bad rule'. When I have this argument with English colleagues I invariably cite the WSJ and NYT as examples of publications that are better-written then their UK counterparts (especially true of the WSJ) and which aren't bound by this stricture. And which, for good measure, don't carry horoscopes either.
I've emailed the WSJ reporter, I expect she'll think I'm a complete nutter and hit the delete key.

POSTSCRIPT: She emailed back! It wasn't her fault, it was edited by someone else, and she attached his explanatory note. As an extra-special bonus, she said it made her laugh. (With me, I'm assuming, not at me.)

POST POSTSCRIPT: Thanks to Fausgang for pointing out the two hideous typos in the original entry. This is why I need G&F friends.

Roommate

I came home quite late on Wednesday night and was checking my mail when I realised I had a roommate. I've become very used to living by myself, and I wasn't best pleased to discover that I was sharing my apartment with a large huntsman spider. The thing was about the size of my hand, and the last one I'd seen this big was in the house I lived in with my ex before we separated. I remember that one well, the kids found it and there was pandemonium in the house, it was like the circus had come to town. The twins came running "daddy there's a spider in our room and the boys are trying to kill it" (you have to imagine this said as though it's all one word to really get the effect), and so I went off to investigate. I was expecting a spider about the size of a 50c coin.

It wasn't, it was f&*cking enormous and I realised, as the boys looked at me, that I was going to have to be brave. While I'm not arachnophic I do have a healthy dose of fear when it comes to spiders, especially ones that look big enough to eat. I trapped it (between a glass dish and a newspaper) and then took it outside, where we released it into the garden to kill bugs. "Spiders", I told the children, "are our friends", and then went off discreetly to have a nervous breakdown.

My roommate spider was in a tricky position and I don't have a garden and having weighed up all the options, I decided to kill it. I had a couple of tries, even using my tennis racquet (backhand, it's more accurate for me) but he was too nimble. Eventually, after he'd wedged himself into a box containing CDs and stuff, I decided that we'd call it a draw. I went to sleep, hoping that the spider understood the deal we had: I stick to my end of the apartment, he sticks to his and if we don't see each other in the morning we pretend nothing happened. (As I described this to one of my colleagues he couldn't help wondering whether I'd had any other houseguests in this category. But my private life's not that lurid.)

Next morning he was gone, or maybe just hiding and I haven't seen him since. My favorite bit in the wiki entry on huntsmans is "They also tend to exhibit a 'cling' reflex if picked up, making them difficult to shake off and much more likely to bite".

Lazy

It occurred to me when I was at the gym today being bossed around by Quentin (which I don't mind, it's like I've outsourced my willpower) that the weights weren't going to lift themselves. Fine, I knew that. Then I started to wonder whether there was any way that, given the amount I'm paying, I could get Quentin to lift the weights, and I just watch. But at the same time, I'd want the benefit of the lifting. Is that too much to ask? I'd pay double.

G & F

I love this. Someone in Chile found this blog as a result of googling 'glamorous & funny'. I tried it myself, it comes up as the second hit. Whahey!

Music.

While I'm at it, here's my piano and guitar. Speaking of retail therapy, I'm going out on the weekend with my mate E to buy a new guitar. I've had this one since 1986 (first thing I bought when I got to NY - well, just about) and even though I love the way it looks I think I need another one. E asked me what I wanted. "One just like the one I have now, only better". The piano I bought early this year, I love it. This pic, now that I look at it, also gives a good sense for how chaotic my flat is.

E once made a record called "Music is a beautiful lady". I have a copy.

Malaise

I'm (again) in the grip of some existential malaise. I flick through the songs on my iPod, I don't like any of them. I mentally sift through my friends and acquaintances and wonder if they really like me, or, in some cases, whether I really like them. I play piano but in a fairly haphazard way.

Maybe what I need is a new computer? This old G4 Powerbook's four and a half years old. It's missing the L key and the K's a bit wobbly. The hinge where it opens is a bit wobbly, on account of it having been dropped on the floor by the twins when they were toddlers.

I went down to the Apple shop near work (no, there's not an Apple Store here yet, that's next year) and did a bit of tyre-kicking, which I always like. They know me there now. I suspect that by the end of the week I'll have a lovely new toy. Then I can donate this laptop (remember I have two, this one - the good one - and the bad one, in a crushingly obvious metaphor for my life) to my kids.

She feels what?

Lovely headline in this Telegraph(UK) article about Patricia Cornwell. (Non-australian readers will be scratching their heads. Sorry.)

Also, on the weekend an article in the New York Times which says that according to Pew Research, 40% of american women aged 25-40 have tattoos. Find the link yourselves if you're interested, I'm going out to buy some mangoes.