Ron of the Glums

The spineless populist

In the recurring bit of intro, played every time after the pre-intro of Americast, Ron de Santis says he will "fight the woke". And whenever he does I think what a lame shadow of Churchill's "fight on the beaches" speech it is. Mr de Santis has obviously read (or perhaps just heard, in a Public Speaking for Dummies course) Churchill's speech:

...we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Here is the de Santis version: 

We will fight the woke in education, we will fight the woke in the businesses, we will never ever surrender to the woke mob.

Oh dear. That repeated "ever" does the reverse of what it's designed to do; it doesn't reinforce, it adds banality. This man wouldn't recognize rhetoric if it bit him.

Shame. I had hopes of his sparing us from another helping of Trump, but someone else will have to do that job. He's a washout.

A bugbear (not another?)

<tangent relevance-value="0", reason="Just saying">
There is no n in restaurateur. Far be it from me to suggest that people who use the word must get the French right. If they want to neologize, they're welcome to; if they want to say 'I'm a restauranter" that's a brave choice (although I think most people hearing it would find it rather silly). But if they're using the word that ends -eur then they need to curb their enthusiasm, n-wise. 

<devils-advocacy> 

But ns with no etymological justification do crop up in word families like passage/passenger or message/messenger. The reverse seems to have happened in French with restaurant/ restaurateur, although if you go back to the verb restaurer [≅ feed, give sustenance to], the n is quite predictable (as is its absence): the place where the doing is happening ends -ant ... 

<extra-credit> 

If you go right back to Proto Indo-European, I suspect the n in -ing and the n in -ant are the same. But Etymonline only goes back to Proto-Germanic.

</extra-credit> 

...and the person doing it (Latin -ator... 

<tangent> 

When I wrote this I toyed with the idea of giving an example. There  are so many that  I decided against it. But Philip Hoare, interviewed on this morning's Broadcasting House  provided one. The Romans called killer whales Orca Gladiator (though that would work better for swordfish, as a gladium is a sword [think of the shape of the leaves of the gladiolus].) 

</tangent>

...) has no n. The question in that case is Where did the -at- come from. But given the state of the lawn, that particular item of etymological gristle will have to remain unchewed. 

</devils-advocacy> 

 </tangent>

This has nothing to do with de Santis, apart from the general background of illiteracy. Whoops, is my elitism showing?

And finally

Welcome to the world, grandson n^o 4, whom I'd name if I hadn't just had a lesson in social engineering (and its usefulness to scammers). Shortly after my birthday last week I received a promising looking email. "Bob", it said, "your friend Louisa has sent you a birthday card. Click here to see it."

Hmm, I thought. Anyone reading this recent post would know it was my birthday around now. Facebook would say exactly when, and would list 'Louisa' as a friend. Mix all that together and you get clickbait.

Rather than click as invited, I sent Louisa a message; and she hadn't sent the 'birthday card', which would presumably have involved a premium rate phone call, a subscription to a service I don't use, or worse.

Shame (and shame on the people who force the rest of us to be less trusting).

b