Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Silent Night; Doing Good

Wednesday, April 7, 2004
10:19:00 AM MST
Hearing NPR

Silent Night

Last night I went to post a fun little piece on the expression "did good" (hi, Howard!), but AOL's journal posting function was apparently offline. I'll try again tonight. Also on tap: another new fictional journal entry, this time from Prince Talber of Londer. You can see it now. though, on his new page on www.mavarin.com. I've been posting one character profile a day over there, and he's the latest.

I've accessed Musings from Mavarin from AOL for Mac OS 10, on the latest AOL for Windows, and via the Web (Netscape and IE). It's highly variable. Sometimes I have text controls, sometimes not. Sometimes I can paste prewritten text into this box, sometimes not. This seems to be true even comparing different instances using the same program and computer. Weird, huh? The other day I had to retype my Palm Sunday piece from scratch, and partly from memory, when the second entry ran too long.

Which reminds me, this entry is probably long enough.


Written by mavarin (Link to this entry)

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The journals have been wonky since the upgrade early Tuesday as the beta testing is over and the revamped journals went live. I could only add entries via IM and couldn't edit. Someone suggested going in thru IE and that worked, and then doing it thru AOL worked. Finally. We can do much longer entries now--25,000 characters--so it's been worth the temporary inconvenience, IMO.
Comment from shellys555 - 4/7/04 6:00 PM


Wednesday, April 7, 2004
6:15:00 PM MST

Doing Good

NPR's All Things Considered aired a commentary yesterday by a sixth grade teacher named Daneil Ferri, objecting to the use of the expression "did good" by his students and by sportscasters, most particularly (allegedly) Bob Costas. Although it was a funny piece, Ferri missed an important point, prompting me to write the following email to NPR:

At the risk of being a goody-goody or a goody-two shoes, I must take issue with Daniel Ferri's commentary aired April 6th,about the expression "did good." His otherwise amusing story overlooked the possibility that erudite sportscaster Bob Costas may have spoken correctly.

"Good is an adjective," Ferri insisted to his class, and to his listeners. It is, sometimes, but what if it isn't? Sometimes "good" is a noun meaning the quality (or quantity!) of goodness, as in, "the battle of Good and Evil," or "In the battle for correct grammar, James Thurber was a force for good," or even, "Bob Brenly's batting order
du jour may do some good." Costas may have said something of the sort, and said it correctly. By the same token, people who try to save the world are correctly called "do-gooders," not "do-betters." Myself, I'd like to do some good, and do it well.

Regards,

Karen Funk Blocher


Written by mavarin (Link to this entry)

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I haven't watched one minute of a Diamondbacks game so far this year. Even if I didn't feel as if they're no longer the team I knew, I just haven't time! - Thanks for posting! - Karen
Comment from mavarin - 4/11/04 10:05 PM


Maybe, but the pitching order (rotation) is pure evil.
Comment from eeyorehmg - 4/11/04 9:58 PM

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