Tempus Fugit
All good things must come to an end, quoth the bards. I don’t know who those bard guys are, but this entirely mediocre thing doth cometh to an end as well.
Thus endeth the 19th season of the WORD season, 162 more or less daily whacks up alongside the head happily delivered from me to you.
Sad, I know. But the Class of 2015 has trooped forth into an unsuspecting land, so it’s time for the jolly men in white coats from St. Mumbles Home for the Terminally Verbose to come and lock up the WORD for another summer of rumination, cogitation and conjugation. He’ll be in the top tower, barking as usual.
It’s been a good hunt; we’ve bagged some good ones. The WORD pauses now to reflect on those that got away and to plan hot pursuit for the 2016—our 20th!—season. A roundup report of the brilliance of the past year would be in order, if I were that well organized. But alas. So, like my students, I’m slipping my last WORD under your door and fleeing.
A WORDster sent me this one, wishing only to shut me the hell up. It has nothing to do with journalism, free expression or anything else we deal with, but it would cheer my students if it were true:
Under the sod and under the trees
Lies the body of [WORDster] Pease.
He is not here, there’s only the pod:
Pease shelled out and went to God.
—An 1880s gravestone on Nantucket
Island, Massachusetts (lightly edited)
No one familiar with the WORD or with God could presume any truth to that. But we are hoping for a good salmon season here, which is almost heaven.
Wishing the best to all of you, loyal, deranged WORDsters. You can anticipate the WORD’s next escape from St. Mumbles in late August. Sorry, but like the swallows to Capistrano and the buzzards to Hinckley, Ohio, you can pretty much count on it.
—TP, inmate, St. Mumbles, on the porch, in the sunny spot, 2015
PeezPix by Ted Pease
Annoy a friend! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM stuck in his email every weekday morning during 20th WORD season, starting in late August. This free “service” is sent to 1,700 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.)
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD
“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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