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By Elizabeth Beck Neither Sarah nor I have met Troy Anthony Davis. I first met his family in about 2003, which was about 18 years into his death sentence when Sarah and I were working on In the Shadow of Death: Restorative Justice and Death Row Families. At the time, his sister

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By Suzanne Ryan, Music Editor

We bid a sad farewell to one of our most dear authors and friends, Bruce Haynes.

An Associate Professor at the Université de Montréal and McGill University, Bruce was a pioneer and champion of historical performance practice with numerous solo and ensemble recordings to his credit. He was a founding member of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, alongside his wife and musical partner, Susie Napper to whom we humbly offer our most sincere condolences.

As part of his long list of publications, Bruce authored two books with Oxford, The Eloquent Oboe: A History of the Hautboy from 1640-1760 (2001) and The End of Early Music: A Period Performer’s History of Music (2007) which received the ASCAP Deems Taylor Media Award, and he was a contributor to the New Grove Dictionary of Music.

Beloved and respected throughout the early music community, Bruce’s efforts and insights as both performer and scholar brought historical performance practice alive, and his legacy will enrich the ears and hearts of musicians and audiences for years to come. It was an honor, a privilege, and a joy to work with Bruce and to be witness to his grace, warmth, and generosity. Bruce passed from our midst on May 17^th, but his spirit will never leave our hearts.

Sort of a bummer today. George Carlin, one of my all-time standup comics, passed away last night. He was one of those guys you either 'got' or you didn't and I think I definitely fell in the former category. I said, many years ago, that if he were to start up a religion, I'd probably be an altar boy at his church.

He said a lot of things that pushed people's buttons (organized religion, politics, cigar-smoking businessmen) and I loved the fact that he'd find where the line was and boldly step across it without hesitation.

More than anything, he got me to look at things in different ways. He loved to stab at people who took things waaaaay too seriously. Sure he sounded angry a lot, sure he had a mouth that could make a sailor blush, but still...he had a real gift for taking the truth and laying it right in front of our noses...no matter how ugly it was.

Say what you will about Mr. Carlin, but I feel like a huge void had been left in the world of comedy today.

Thanks for the laughs, George.

Your fan,

Thomas

In the closing sentences of last week’s column about Super Bowl and Super Tuesday, I unwittingly set off some readers’ usage alarms. Talking about terms like Tsunami Tuesday and Super-Duper Tuesday, I wrote: “But none of these amplified epithets have managed to displace good old Super Tuesday.” That’s right — I used none with the plural verb have instead of singular has. I then continued: “A Google News search currently finds nearly 20,000 articles referencing Super Tuesday in the past month, compared to less than 1,000 for Super-Duper Tuesday and less than 500 for Tsunami Tuesday.” Less than 1,000, less than 500? Not fewer? Eagle-eyed commenters were to quick to pick up on both of these usage points. I’d like to say I hid these in the column as a test for readers, but I wasn’t that clever. It does provide a good opportunity, however, to take a look at two of the more contentious debates over English usage in modern times.

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Earlier this week I spent an enjoyable hour being interviewed on the Wisconsin Public Radio show “At Issue with Ben Merens.” Though our topic was ostensibly the New Oxford American Dictionary’s choice of locavore as Word of the Year, as well as other notable words of 2007, we soon ventured into other word-related matters when the lines were opened for listeners’ calls. One caller had his own coinage that he hoped might someday achieve the fame of locavore and other recent additions to the language. Since English lacks a singular pronoun that can be used to refer to a person regardless of gender, the caller suggested that O be used for this purpose (since I is used as the first-person singular pronoun). (more…)

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