Betting & hitting — Pete knows something about both. But who did he say it about?

Why, Fidel Castro. Pete Rose had just been told (erroneously) that Fidel and his ‘right-angle curve ball’ had once turned down a contract with the New York Giants.

Fidel took another path. But I’d sure liked to have been at the Polo Grounds . . . late summer, top of the ninth, Giants up by one, pennant in the balance . . .  the Reds’ tying run on third and the winner on second.

At the plate is Charlie Hustle . . .  and on the mound is Castro Ruz.

“Whoa, Steve!” all the people say. “She never claimed to be a technical writer!”

Au contraire, mes pauvres. That’s exactly what she claimed to be, by publishing a cookbook. Cookbooks are the purest form of technical writing — a term that refers to a kind of writing, not the nature of the subject being written about.

Of course, much technical writing does address technical subjects, and I’ve toiled in those fields — Joe Bells and I wrote the manuals for the first U.S. tier-one automotive implementation of SAP. I deeply appreciate the skill, and I know few people who can write clear, concise, accurate instructions, in perfect order.

Julia’s are a total mess.

What you didn’t know:

• Julia Child was CIA. (Yep, look it up. They called it OSS then.)
• Technical writing was born in Detroit, long before computers.

And 1 little opinion
The most interesting challenge in cooking is to improve the nutritional values in a dish without sacrificing too much taste. Tonight at Boisfeuillet we’re exploring fruits de mer, drawing on some of the best recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child.

But if you’re interested in language, don’t ignore Lincoln, the greatest writer America has produced. Lincoln’s prose drove action — revolutionary action — more powerfully than any other in the country’s history.

Though my Civil War politics align more with John Brown, Thad Stevens, Frederick Douglass, Tunis Campbell, and Joseph Wedemeyer, the prize for American literature goes to Lincoln.

Good article in today’s NYT. (Caveat: Only if you’ve dug a few spaces in 2 feet of snow can you fully appreciate this.)

What’s the language angle? Skip to the end, where Maria explains her 1 and only protocol violation, the theft of a neighbor’s hard-dug space:

“I know enough people to get me out of trouble if I need to.”

“Do one assigned task on your computer. It shouldn’t take you more than two seconds. Repeat 14,399 times. Congratulations! Your eight-hour work day is complete.”

Read the NYT story.

First, here’s how we know: Last December a hacker stole 32 million passwords and posted them on the Web. Half were purely weak, and the single most common one was . . . drumroll . . .  123456. (Microsoft Windows magazine, Fall 2010)

If you read about the U.S. civil war at the soldier level, as I sometimes do, you’ll often come across the expression “Sign and countersign.” It’s just an editorial convention — nobody ever said it — that represents an actual verbal exchange, an exchange of passwords between soldiers.

Authors use it because they have no idea what the soldiers actually said. After all, real signs and countersigns weren’t something you’d write in a letter to the family. And they changed every day.

Oats o’marra — By your leave my lady.  Two ducks and a goose — One if by land. Sign — countersign. In Civil War literature, these mean the same thing.

BTW, contrary to popular belief, codes are not broken — people are, and then they give up codes. So please don’t get too excited about the strength of your passwords.

It featured a quote from former U.S. war secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whom they labeled “U.S. Secretary of Confusion.” They said Rumsfeld needed an editor.

Here’s the quote:

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know.”

I could spell this out — but why? It’s clear as a bell. Rumsfeld was many things, but he wasn’t confused, nor was he in need of a Georgia hick dressed up as an editor.

Rumsfeld consistently spoke clearly and concisely, and this quote is an example. His audience understood him perfectly, even if some less informed people didn’t. Rumsfeld’s milieu knows that unknown unknowns are what sink ships, navies, governments.

If “editors” can’t recognize clarity when it bites them on the you-know, how exactly will they provide it for a customer?

(We leave aside the fact that Rumfeld’s remark was spoken, not written. How would these “editors” propose to “edit” it? Do they live in a bygone era, before YouTube?)

Okay, Shreve. Will do.

A short reading list for Atlanta and Georgia . . .

Memoirs by Gen. William T. Sherman. Some Atlantans hated the man who burned the city, while others named their children for him. Unexpected bonus: Sherman, like Grant, could write.

Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Fiction is lying — that’s its nature — but while some authors make up stories to reveal truth,  others . . . well, meet Mrs. Mitchell. She was deeply nostalgic for slavery and revolted by democracy. But she was a better writer than she’s given credit for.

Under the Guardianship of the Nation: The Freedman’s Bureau and the Reconstruction of Georgia, 1865-1867 by Paul Cimbala. Bureau agents mediated between former masters who weren’t sure they were former, and former slaves who had no doubt of it. For better and worse, the Bureau operated at the heart of the democratic revolution in the U.S.

The Inman Family: An Atlanta Family from Reconstruction to World War I, by Tammy Harden Galloway. After the war, these masters without slaves landed in Atlanta and quickly opened the biggest cotton brokerage in the world. Along with a steel mill, a railroad, an energy company, and a little school on North Avenue. They owned a few governors, too.

Atlanta and Its Environs, by Franklin Garrett. For a comprehensive history it’s all we’ve got — two volumes of vast information, though writ dense and obscured by fawning.

The Creation of Modern Georgia, by Numan Bartley. A summary of Georgia since Oglethorpe, mainly focused post-1865.

The History of Georgia, Kenneth Coleman, ed.  History straight from the state — it’s their version and they’re sticking to it. This book was published by Jimmy Carter’s crowd in 77 and reblessed by same in 91. Still in print today, it assures us that “not every slave was a Sambo.”

Imagineering Atlanta, by Charles Rutheiser. Is this a city or a marketing plan? Rutheiser captures the heady mix of civic boosterism brewed in Atlanta by railroaders and insurance men, politicians and publishers, advertisers and Ku Kluxers. (The title is especially apt: Imagineering is a Disney term.)

Mayor: Notes from the Sixties, by Ivan Allen. Atlanta in mid-century. Allen came from merchant stock, but he jumped class — he married an Inman — and led the city’s business establishment into the modern world. If you ever wondered why King’s hometown wasn’t a focus for civil right marches, Allen explains it.

1864: Yankees at the Gates, by Steve Marshall. A summary of Sherman’s invasion of Georgia and capture of Atlanta, including a short account of the city’s origins. Read 1864: Yankees at the Gates

Death is the subject, do part is the verb, and them is the object. You learned that in HS even if you slept thru it, like me.

Not sure? Diagram it, buddy.

Maybe the copy editor was so excited about do — “Shouldn’t it be does?!” — that he/she missed an easy one. (BTW, do is correct — deliberately old-fashioned, it’s a consequence of the conditional till.)  But surely there are other editors at the NYT. Wouldn’t you think all would notice an archaic reference in 160-point bold, and take an extra moment for special attention?  Maybe they did.

Maybe I’m wrong . . .

But I got linguist PhDs for in-laws (both sides), and some brutal editors for coworkers. I won’t say they’d all LOVE to catch me in a grammar error, but they wouldn’t turn it down either. In that case, expect a quick recant. Otherwise . . .

Till fact do me disprove.

[Hey Steve . . . you said "like me" and "I got."  Aren't those grammar errors? Nopey. Blogtalk standards are different from those of the world's leading newspaper -- particularly its weekly magazine. Plus, if you know the rules, you can break them. And that ain't what happened last week on 43rd St.]

[You could argue it was deliberate. They is the subject, do part is still the verb, and Death is the object. They in this instance are a pair of people who hope to someday part death -- namely via cryogenics, which is what half the pair is betting on. Like the other half, I don't buy cryogenics. And I don't buy that explanation for why the mighty New York Times fell down flat on grammar.]

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