Plumb Wrong

A recent issue of Britain’s respected and usually grammatical newspaper The Guardian commented as follows on the new prime minister: “Cameron's powers of patronage are slightly reduced since he does not have power through government whips to hand out plumb posts chairing parliamentary select committees.”  The writer probably meant “plum” posts, which would mean jobs that were very desirable—especially those given as a reward. 

Plumb, from the Latin plumbum (meaning the metal lead), means “a lead weight on the end of a line used to establish a true vertical.”  By extension plumb can also mean “perfectly straight,” “immediately,” or “absolutely”—as in “you are plumb crazy.”

Plum, on the other hand, from the Latin prunum, refers to the purplish fruit, and,  likened to the sweetness of the fruit, to any desirable thing.  Food companies are now trying to persuade us that the food product so loved by costive oldsters and known for generations as a prune, should really be thought of as a dried plum, which is much more desirable.  No one ever talks about handing out “prunes” as rewards. 

Use of the wrong plumb in The Guardian may come as no surprise to those who remember the paper’s unfortunate habit (now largely a thing of the past) of making so many typographical errors—it once printed its own name as The Gaurdian—that the satirical magazine Private Eye began referring to it as The Grauniad.  

The Brad of Buffalo Bayou hardly ever makes typographical arrows, but he does perpetrate even worse linguistic offenses, like the following:

           

            You may find The Guardian

            A wee bit Edwardian.

            And perhapsThe Observer

            Could display some more fervour.

           

            It’s quite true that the Mail

            Is a tad shy on detail,

            And a few folks were slandered

            By that old Evening Standard

           

            The Daily Telegraph

            Can make a fella laugh,

            While The Daily Express

            Causes only distress.

            No hillside’s dew-pearled

            In the News of the World--

            But if you need some rhymes,

            Then you’d best get The Times

Read All About It! (While You Can)

Daily newspapers are in serious trouble, as you know if you read a daily newspaper. Hardly a day passes without a report of a closure, a bankruptcy, or a massive staff layoff. I hear that one editor, in an economy measure, sent the sports editor to cover the Metropolitan Opera. He included this account in his review: "Levine, suffering from a recurrent shoulder injury, didn't have his best stuff, and the Met's manager pulled him at the end of the second act. A reliever from the bullpen finished the opera without a score." Well, that's what I heard.

Newspapers are getting much thinner and one unintended consequence is a shortage of material with which to line cat boxes, wrap garbage, and pack crystal. Desperate householders are turning to the more copious, but far less suitable, pages of the Victoria's Secret catalogue.

Most maddening of all, you often encounter news stories in the paper--which you have bought in order to read the news stories--that provide only teasing highlights and tell you: "For the full story, go to our website."

As the newsprint-loving Bard of Buffalo Bayou puts it:
One day soon we'll have to get
News only from the Internet.
The newspapers will cease to be,
And that's just fine--if you're a tree.