As much as I enjoy watching Food Network, every show I watch uses the word “restaurateur” (on screen) to describe someone who owns a restaurant, but they pronounce it “restauranteur.”
However, there is no “n” in “restaurateur,” which is a French word pronounced without an “n,” as in “reh·str·uh·tur.” If they’re going to butcher the French pronunciation, the least they could do is add an “n” on screen and make it an American aberration.
PS Back online after a long hiatus waiting for Godot.
I’d never vote for the guy, but I must say that “Bernie Sanders is right!” (to copy a much-used and -abused construction from “Blazing Saddles”).
Every nation should copy Sweden, not because it’s what The Bern thinks is the perfect socialist society (which it’s not, being instead a highly capitalistic but highly taxed nation). It’s because Sweden was the only nation that got the pandemic response correct: Do as little as possible except take those in most danger out of harm’s way. Sweden now has herd immunity, which is far superior to any vaccine, which at best will be 50 percent effective and which 40 percent of Americans say they’ll never take.
 Recent studies (see today’s Wall Street Journal) affirm that, in the U.S., those states and communities that locked down the hardest ended up killing off the most people by percentage of population, while those that did the least lost the least. Hmmmmm….
Which brings up my headline about “an abundance of,” which throughout the pandemic was used by politicians with “caution,” to signify, “We’re going to save your life by locking you up at home.”
(Now critics will point out that Sweden had more deaths than its neighboring countries, such as Norway, which locked down, but remember, Sweden has perfected Bernie’s “Medicare for All” approach by rationining health care: If you’re too old and too expensive to keep alive: “Here’s some morphine. See ya later.”)
The next time someone says they’re doing something for you out of “an abundance of” whatever, run as quickly as you can and do just the opposite of what they’re proposing.
I always wondered why a super-sale event would bear the name “Black Friday.”
Thanks to my friends at Numerologist.com, I now have an answer, to wit:
In the 1950s, Philadelphia would host the annual Army-Navy football match on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Fans would begin arriving the day before, thronging to shops and eateries and you name it. Store owners were overwhelmed, and soon began complaining about Black Friday — the deluge of shoppers and lookie-loos that they could barely handle.
There ya go. However, the Army-Navy game is no longer held on the Saturday after T-Day, so we’re left just with Black Friday. Nationwide.
It’s rare that I come across someone in life who knows how to correctly form a conditional “if” clause. You often hear, “If I was rich (or fill in the blank),” uttered without a clue to the grammatical mistake they just made.
 Conditional “if” clauses always take the plural form. (I know, some jackass out there will find some web reference disputing this, but he, she, it and they will be wrong.)
Thay’s why, tonight while I was watching the “KIDSCAST” of the Little League World Series Hawaii-vs.-Virginia game, I was surprised to hear Mo’ne Davis — the designated ESPN “analyst” — say, “If I were they,” using the conditional perfectly.
I say “surprised” only because I hear people in all walks of life — high, low, medium — butcher the conditional so regularly. Most people would probably have quipped, “If I was them,” or inching closer to correct usage, “If I were them.” The problem is them. Was/were is not an action verb and doesn’t take the objective (them) but retains the subjective usage (they).
Anyway, Mo’ne Davis is an impressive young woman, now five years removed from the same Little League World Series that made her famous and moved Sports Illustrated to dump Kobe Bryant off its cover in favor of the 13-year-old pitcher.
In an interview, she said she’s going to study communications at Hampton University in Virginia (home to the losing team tonight) and then hopes to become a broadcaster with her own show called “Moments.”
In her work tonight with the Little League game, she betrayed too many “ums” and probably needs to gin up some effervescence, but otherwise she seems headed for stardom.
This has nothing to do with English or grammar, but with justice and dignity.
 There’s no reason Bill Buckner, baseball great who died today from the ravages of dementia, isn’t in the Baseball Hall of Fame other than that first-base error in the 1986 World Series.
May he rest in peace, and may the gods of baseball justice put him in the Hall of Fame, to rest forever for the talent, strength and dignity he displayed in a 22-year career and afterwards.
Come on, .262-average Ozzie Smith is in the HOF for backflips, and Bill Buckner is denied for one error. Time for justice.
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