RIPTIDE

WORD CRIMES

 

So there!

Handy dandy all-purpose editor's note to critics and trolls (borrowed from Ed Yong of The Atlantic):

 

"If you have sent abuse or insults, please know that I have filed away your comments for the time when my toilet paper eventually runs out."

 

And then there's this classic kiss-off:

 

"Here I sit in the smallest room of my house with your letter before me. It will shortly be behind me."

Commatose

Are you a demonym?

"A demonym is a word used to describe the residents or natives of a place: New Yorkers, Oregonians, or Japanese, for example." Likewise, Pacifican is a demonym, adds Pacifican Peter Loeb. 

Exotic new stone fruit?

seen at Pacifica Grocery Outlet by designer Beth Brann

Gross car wash?

NextDoor post on trying to find a replacement for the South San Francisco car wash that went out of business: "That car wash is getting remolded at the moment. Not sure when it will open up again."

Pierre Messerli

Hiding in plain sight: Columbus son's 500-year-old classic found on wrong bookshelf in Denmark library

news story

High school journalism teacher defends student newspaper's constitutional rights

news story

The Oath

Style guide for the 1 percent?

scathing review

The hyphenated whale Moby-Dick

Mocha Dude

New Bedford Whaling Museum

Wandering & Wondering keeps surfing on Riptide

Thanks to my Pacifica Tribune readers for following my Wandering & Wondering column the past 20 years. I have folded the column and refocused my journalistic energies on this blog, covering the Coastside from Pacifica to Pescadero. All my newspaper columns are archived here on Riptide: Just click the Wandering & Wondering category on the sidebar.

John Maybury

No count

Best media corrections of 2018

news story

REAL NEWS

BAY AREA TEEN WINS BULWER-LYTTON PRIZE FOR BAD WRITING

NEWS STORY

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

"Or take a stroll over to Ink Dwell, the new studio of painter Jane Kim, who specializes in ornate audoban-style murals of still wildlife...” (One Day One Place: Half Moon Bay, July 11, by Greg Thomas, S.F. Chronicle travel editor)

WHAT IS 44 + 66?

From The (San Mateo) Daily Journal, Letters to the editor, July 2, 2018:

San Mateo County Chief Elections Officer Mark Church opined recently that the June election had been "extremely successful" because 44 percent of residents voted […]. How sad that in a democracy where all citizens have an equal right to vote, fewer than half take advantage of the privilege. Do 66 percent of citizens subscribe to the bromide "I don’t really care, do u?”

(Reader Pierre Messerli caught this mathematically challenged letter.)

 

LOCALS BUY HALF MOON BAY REVIEW

NEWS STORY

NEWS STORY

PACIFICA JOURNALIST RENEE BATTI: NEW ALMANAC EDITOR

NEWS STORY