We’ve been working hard on OTI all year, but still we’re amazed at the success of what started as a lark (”Hey, guys, want to write a website?”) in January of 2008. Needless to say, we owe it to our brilliant, opinionated, passionate, fantastic readers; on behalf of all the writers, thank you for making OTI a part of your compulsive web browsing on company time!
We’ve got great things planned for 2009. We’ll let you know what they are as soon as we’ve figured them out. Happy New Year!
Happy Holdiays and New Year from all the writers on the site. (We all chipped in and got Belinkie a copy of The Wire.)
We’ll be on holiday hiatus until the new year, and doing a little technical housekeeping in the meantime. We’ll still be updating the Twitter feed and recording the podcast (iTunes link), but you won’t see a new post until 2009. Unless there’s a really good Gossip Girl or something.
One thing grates on my nerves more than the the egregious examples of poor usage and idiocy I have tackled in this series: When people correct others incorrectly or, more bluntly, when people who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about and are snobs about it.
Case in point: “Xmas.” The nuns who taught my father in Catholic elementary school would rail against this abbreviation, claiming that it was a sacrilege worse than claiming you’re bigger than Jesus or something.
Apparently, they couldn’t be bothered to look in a dictionary. Here’s the American Heritage Dictionary (4th ed., 2000):
Xmas has been used for hundreds of years in religious writing, where the X represents a Greek chi, the first letter of , “Christ.” In this use it is parallel to other forms like Xtian, “Christian.” [Or Xtina. —Ed.]
But people unaware of the Greek origin of this X often mistakenly interpret Xmas as an informal shortening pronounced (ksms). Many [idiots] therefore frown upon the term Xmas because it seems to them a commercial convenience that omits Christ from Christmas.
OK, I added “idiots” in the paragraph above. But the dictionary wasn’t being snarky enough.
A funny postscript: As an adult, my dad decided, nuns be damned, he was going to write “Xmas”, figuring that because the letter “X” is cruciform it is an acceptable symbol of Christianity. This is an example of speculative folk etymology, something I’ve taken upbefore. Though you have to admire the brand integration: X, chi, the cross — they do all seem to fit together.
Matthew Wrather hosts a panel including Matthew Belinkie, Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, David Shechner, and special guest “Al” to wrap up Karate Kid Week, including:
A final word on the racial message of The Karate Kid
An extremely detailed look at LA’s San Fernando Valley
The 1987 Ford Tempo
Digressions into Barbie, Spaceballs, and Winnebagoes
Some more about the geography of Los Angeles
The Coming Remake (reboot? travesty?) of The Karate Kid
As always, email us at podcast AT overthinkingit DOT com with your comments, or call 20-EAT-LOG-01 (that’s (203) 285-6401) to leave a voicemail.
Word comes today (via Defamer) that the coming remake of The Karate Kid set to star Will Smith’s son Jaden will be less a remake and more–um–a fucking travesty.
It seems that due to the financial participation of the China Film Group, the film’s location will be moved from the San Fernando Valley to China, where a Chinese mentor will instruct young Jaden in the ways of a martial art other than karate. Will Smith is at pains to explain that this is in fact a good thing:
“Fortunately, karate is originally a Chinese art form, so that’s the area we’re playing around in.” (Ed. Note: Though karate was developed in Japan, it is based upon Kenpō, a Chinese fighting style.)
I’m not sure I’m willing to grant that adverb… “Fortunately” implies that we should somehow be glad that the source material needed slightly less lube before violation (or, rather, “playing around”). As if she deserves it for dressing in such a skimpy gi.
We’ve had some spiriteddebate on the site this week about the racial implications of a character like Mr. Miyagi who, for better or worse, became a kind of pop-culture mascot for American perception of its rising Asian population. Kidding aside, I can’t help but think that taking such a monumental change (can they even call it The Karate Kid anymore?) so lightly conceals the insidious racism that minimizes real differences in customs, history, and culture among Asian peoples because, after all, they all have slanty eyes.
In other words: “Those martial arts all look the same to me.”
, “Christ.” In this use it is parallel to other forms like Xtian, “Christian.” [Or Xtina. —Ed.]
ks
m
s). Many [idiots] therefore frown upon the term Xmas because it seems to them a commercial convenience that omits Christ from Christmas.