??!! The White Way
posted by on February 8 at 12:29 PM
In an interview this week in The Stranger, Of Montreal’s frontman Kevin Barnes says:
You can listen to the White Album or Sgt. Pepper’s like a trillion times over your lifetime and never get totally sick of it.
That’s how the sentence is printed in the paper this week. Anything about it seem weird to you? Isn’t something missing its italics? Looks like an error, doesn’t it?
Well, it isn’t. Not officially. People who know what they’re talking about know that, officially, The White Album doesn’t have a name. But c’mon. It’s referred to as The White Album in, well, millions of places, including The New Yorker. And the New York Times. And Salon. And, um, Slog. And, well, pretty much everywhere else except the cover of the album itself (which just says The Beatles) and on my iTunes (which says The Beatles [White Album]).
I realize this doesn’t matter to anyone, but does it or does it not look retarded to have Sgt. Pepper’s and The White Album in the same sentence, but for only one of them to be italicized? Isn’t it time The Stranger got with the rest of the world on this and just changed our house style? What’s wrong with just calling it The White Album? Will anyone be confused? And if you say, well, the White Album is its nickname—as the insurgents in the copyediting department insist—and you don’t italicize it, then why even capitalize it? Just treat “white” as an adjective if you’ve gotta be so stringent. Or, hell, why don’t we just write it like that? The “white” album. Or, even better: the [ ] album. You know, just some white space?
Sigh. I’ll shut up now. After all, a little more digging finds the New York Times referring to it… well, the wrong way. (Meaning, the correct way.) Here. And also here. And over here in the magazine.
Anyway, when you read—
You can listen to the White Album or Sgt. Pepper’s like a trillion times over your lifetime and never get totally sick of it.
—in the paper this week and it seems wrong to you, well, it’s not wrong. Officially.
As you were.
maybe it can have a symbol, like Prince.
Christopher, While I appreciate being called an insurgent, it doesn't seem to fit your rant. Insurgents rebel against established authority, they don't enforce it. XO
oh snap! gillian the enforcer!
Thanks for the explanation. That might have bothered me, but now I'm on the side of the copyeditors (as usual).
Christopher,
Please stop using the word retarded in that context. That passed as acceptable in the early ninties, why the hell do people think it's ok again? Some fads, once they die, should stay dead.
It disturbs me to see how often Stranger writers, who otherwise seem to choose their words carfeully and intellegently, are beginning to use this word.
We have so many other, better words. Such as those that don't mock the mentally handicapped.
Seriously.
While I believe it is wrong to refer to mentally handicapped people as "retards", the word exists as more then mere slang.
Dictionary.com says it best;
"A slowing down or hindering of progress; a delay."
So, when Mr. Frizzelle said, "..does it or does it not look retarded to have Sgt. Pepper’s and The White Album in the same sentence, but for only one of them to be italicized?" he was in the right.
So, pull that stick out of your ass, retard.
Jedd!
Was Frizzelle really trying to say that it looks "slow" for the White Album to remain unitalicized? Was it that the passage therefore appeared "delayed," or as if its "progress" had been "hindered?" That's not what I got from it.
It seemed to me that he was saying it looks stupid for one album title to be italicized and one not. Certainly the word exists outside of its slang meaning, but that's not how he was using it.
Am I the only one who's noticed a sharp rise in its slang usage-and among people who did not previously say it? I don't consider myself especially vigilant or sensative on this matter, and I don't like to play word police, but I just don't get why this word is back.
Using "retarded" as a diss in any context is retarded. You see what I mean?
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