suffixes for the morning. I stuck it back in the box and pulled out the next batch of cits.
Asterisk
. Grand. I was beginning to feel nostalgic for
asswipe
.
Ten after ten was when the ten-minute break time started. At 10:09, Mona peered into my cubicle, resting her little pink chin on the cubicle wall.
“Having fun?” she asked.
“Yeah—I mean, not exactly.” I closed my motorcycle magazine. “I’ve been reading this magazine for thirty minutes and all I’ve underlined is ‘rice rocket,’ which is apparently an un-PC term for sports bikes from Japan. And honestly, I don’t think ‘rice rocket’ is ever going to make it into the dictionary.”
“Just underline it and move on with your life, Billy. You’re thinking about it too much. Whether or not it’ll make it in later isn’t the point. You want to take a walk for the coffee break?”
“Sure.”
Once we were outside, cutting across Samuelson’s front lawn, she said, “I don’t suppose you’ve come up with any brilliant ideas about those cits yet.”
“Nope.” I paused to suck in the crisp fall air. It annoyed me that this beautiful day was occurring right outside of the Samuelson office, just out of reach from my cubicle. “I’ll come running if I do.”
“Good. I’m looking forward to it.”
“So what are you working on right now?”
“Nothing. Taking a morning break from defining. They gave me some proofreading to do on the update of that kids’ thesaurus. Mindless.”
“Huh. I haven’t gotten anything like that yet.”
“Oh, you will.”
“So … what’s up with that George guy?”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s this ‘bruschetta’ office poll?”
“Oh, George does that once in a while. He’ll probably do it a lot more now that we’re working on the
Supplement
.”
“Shouldn’t he be able to determine how things are pronounced on his own? I mean, based on the evidence?”
“It’s just, sort of, for his own clarification,” Mona said. “Especially if it’s some new foreign borrowing, like a food word. He wants to see how your average educated Americans are saying it. Here he has a roomful of relatively educated people at his disposal.”
“All right. But what if we’re all saying it wrong?”
“If we’re all saying it, it’s probably not wrong, exactly. Just Americanized. If no one is saying the real foreign pronunciation, it’s probably not going to enter the language that way.”
“That just doesn’t sound like a very reliable method.”
“Well, you know, George doesn’t have as much citation evidence as we do for his work. Usually the only person who ever thinks to take regular pronunciation citations is the pronunciation editor. Have you seen the pronunciation cit file? Only a few drawers. He has to use a variety of sources to make his decisions. There are probably some tough calls. I think he usually uses the office poll to decide whether to take a variant seriously. Like, say he’s got some evidence that people are starting to say
fajita
like ‘fa-jee-ta.’ Of course it seems completely dumb to someone like him.But maybe he’ll do an office poll. If ten out of thirty or so educated people are saying ‘fa-jee-ta,’ maybe there’s something to it. Maybe it’s becoming an accepted variant.”
“Is that a real example?” I asked.
“Of course not. I don’t think anyone in the office would say ‘fa-jee-ta,’ do you? I just heard some girl say it at Taco Bell the other day. Which is what made me think of it.”
“You eat at Taco Bell?”
“Yes. I’m tired after work a lot. And I’m not much of a cook, I’m afraid.”
“You shouldn’t eat too much fast food. It fogs the brain.”
“Fogs the brain?”
“Well—it fogs
my
brain, I think, but probably you don’t need to worry. I’m just a little bit of a food snob, that’s all.”
We walked on in silence for a few minutes, heading down a street behind the Samuelson parking lot. A woman started yelling something
Asterisk
. Grand. I was beginning to feel nostalgic for
asswipe
.
Ten after ten was when the ten-minute break time started. At 10:09, Mona peered into my cubicle, resting her little pink chin on the cubicle wall.
“Having fun?” she asked.
“Yeah—I mean, not exactly.” I closed my motorcycle magazine. “I’ve been reading this magazine for thirty minutes and all I’ve underlined is ‘rice rocket,’ which is apparently an un-PC term for sports bikes from Japan. And honestly, I don’t think ‘rice rocket’ is ever going to make it into the dictionary.”
“Just underline it and move on with your life, Billy. You’re thinking about it too much. Whether or not it’ll make it in later isn’t the point. You want to take a walk for the coffee break?”
“Sure.”
Once we were outside, cutting across Samuelson’s front lawn, she said, “I don’t suppose you’ve come up with any brilliant ideas about those cits yet.”
“Nope.” I paused to suck in the crisp fall air. It annoyed me that this beautiful day was occurring right outside of the Samuelson office, just out of reach from my cubicle. “I’ll come running if I do.”
“Good. I’m looking forward to it.”
“So what are you working on right now?”
“Nothing. Taking a morning break from defining. They gave me some proofreading to do on the update of that kids’ thesaurus. Mindless.”
“Huh. I haven’t gotten anything like that yet.”
“Oh, you will.”
“So … what’s up with that George guy?”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s this ‘bruschetta’ office poll?”
“Oh, George does that once in a while. He’ll probably do it a lot more now that we’re working on the
Supplement
.”
“Shouldn’t he be able to determine how things are pronounced on his own? I mean, based on the evidence?”
“It’s just, sort of, for his own clarification,” Mona said. “Especially if it’s some new foreign borrowing, like a food word. He wants to see how your average educated Americans are saying it. Here he has a roomful of relatively educated people at his disposal.”
“All right. But what if we’re all saying it wrong?”
“If we’re all saying it, it’s probably not wrong, exactly. Just Americanized. If no one is saying the real foreign pronunciation, it’s probably not going to enter the language that way.”
“That just doesn’t sound like a very reliable method.”
“Well, you know, George doesn’t have as much citation evidence as we do for his work. Usually the only person who ever thinks to take regular pronunciation citations is the pronunciation editor. Have you seen the pronunciation cit file? Only a few drawers. He has to use a variety of sources to make his decisions. There are probably some tough calls. I think he usually uses the office poll to decide whether to take a variant seriously. Like, say he’s got some evidence that people are starting to say
fajita
like ‘fa-jee-ta.’ Of course it seems completely dumb to someone like him.But maybe he’ll do an office poll. If ten out of thirty or so educated people are saying ‘fa-jee-ta,’ maybe there’s something to it. Maybe it’s becoming an accepted variant.”
“Is that a real example?” I asked.
“Of course not. I don’t think anyone in the office would say ‘fa-jee-ta,’ do you? I just heard some girl say it at Taco Bell the other day. Which is what made me think of it.”
“You eat at Taco Bell?”
“Yes. I’m tired after work a lot. And I’m not much of a cook, I’m afraid.”
“You shouldn’t eat too much fast food. It fogs the brain.”
“Fogs the brain?”
“Well—it fogs
my
brain, I think, but probably you don’t need to worry. I’m just a little bit of a food snob, that’s all.”
We walked on in silence for a few minutes, heading down a street behind the Samuelson parking lot. A woman started yelling something
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