You know your brain is locked into an incorrect spelling when you type said incorrect spelling into Google and the only two entries for that spelling are an entry on your blog and a Word doc of a draft book chapter on your academic web space. (In fact, said misspelling may have made it into print).

For some reason I had it stuck in my head that the former military dictator of Colombia Gustavo Rojas Pinilla had not “o” on the end of his first name (i.e., Gustav). And, apparently, I was the only person in the whole world of the internet with that problem.

I went to look in the chapter I am working on and sure enough, I had spelled it sans the o.

Must be some subconscious rebellion against Overstock.com.
(Editing disabled while spellchecking)
Stop spell checking

I have decided that the word “mainstream” (which is subjective to being with) has lost all meaning in the context of judicial nomination hearings. Senator Schumer has long politicized the word in this context and now Senators Graham Cornyn have decided to up the political ante.

As such, it has become a word that I almost cringe to hear out the mouths of Senators in this context.

(Alternative title: “Roberts Hate Bad Grammar!” — at least that makes it parallel with this and this).

Via the NYT: In Re Grammar, Roberts’s Stance Is Crystal Clear

In fact, an obsession with rhetorical precision is a central Roberts trait, said friends and former colleagues of the man nominated by President Bush to become a Supreme Court justice.

A cheerfully ruthless copy editor over the years, Judge Roberts has demanded verbal rigor from his colleagues and subordinates, refusing to tolerate the slightest grammatical slip, and boasting an exceptional vocabulary and command of literature himself.

Nowhere are Judge Roberts’s tendencies as a grammarian more evident than in his memorandums from the Reagan era, when, as a lawyer in the counsel’s office, he frequently peppered notes and documents with minor syntax corrections even when the basic legal arguments were sound. If Judge Roberts is confirmed, and his word-consciousness follows him to the court, it will put him in the upper tier of justices who have put a premium on the English language.

At a minimum, his arrival would add a formidable Scrabble talent to the bench.

Amusing:

In a memorandum the next year, responding to a letter from David T. Willard, an elementary school superintendent in Illinois who opposed the administration’s education policies, Mr. Roberts again concluded that no legal issues needed to be addressed by the White House counsel. But he took the opportunity to note, “The letter is very sarcastic, although Willard inadvertently proves our point about the quality of public education by incorrectly using ‘affect’ for ‘effect.’ “

Personally, I am fairly certain this all just proves that he’s a fascist. I mean, really, who gets this uptight about grammar and such?

And I am fairly certain that “slumgullion” is a cryto-Nazi codeword:

Acknowledging that the White House usually ignored such mail, he wrote to his superior, Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel, “Anyone who can quote inspiring passages from Plato and Webster, however, and use a word like ’slumgullion,’ deserves a reply, and I have drafted one for your signature.”

“Slumgullion” being, for the record, a thin stew.

Yeah, right, that’s what they all say.

Via Reuters: High court pick to have ‘mainstream’ values - Bush.

Well, isn’t that what Schumer is always asking for?

A shame that they don’t agree on the meaning of the word.

Have I ever mentioned that I find the usage of the word “mainstream” by politicians to be most annoying?

For some resaon I find the word “conclave” to be simultaneously kinda cool and kinda sinister–perhaps for the same reason, as it evokes a cerrtain amount of learned mystery.

Alternatively, it also makes me think of “coven”–as in a coven of witches. Meguesses that the Cardinals might not like that comparison (not that I am making any particulat comments on the Catholic Church–just chit-chatting about words).