It's also hard to find anyone south of 96th who knows what spoonbread is.

--
Melinda C. P. Skinner
Richmond, VA


 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Debra Jackson/Harold Forsythe <[log in to unmask]>
> Jon,
> 
>     You made a direct hit on the hubris at the heart of the New Yorker.  It 
> is the provincial journals that make grammatical and factual mistakes, not 
> the linguistic 'journal of record' in the true cultural capital of the 
> English speaking world.
>     New York's saving grace is that it is two cities.  The City is in 
> Manhattan below 96th Street with perhaps a branch in Brooklyn Heights. 
> Fortunately, in the neighborhoods, you find just folks, like in Richmond; 
> well not quite.  The neighborhoods are a great city of immigrants where 
> kudzu is unknown but the Nem tree, bamboo, and sugar cane are well know. 
> And quiet as it is kept, above 96th Street in Manhattan, as in the farm 
> country of the Southside, you can still buy live poultry for your kitchen.
> 
> Harold S. Forsythe
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jon Kukla" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 9:24 AM
> Subject: kudzu
> 
> 
> >>> On Mar 27, 2007, at 8:08 AM, Brent Tarter wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Any reference librarian or good historian is aware of numerous
> >>> instances in which such ill-informed publications generate myths or
> >>> misstatements of fact that work like just so much kudzu, clogging up
> >>> understanding of the past and leading future readers astray.
> >
> > Many of us enjoy The New Yorker's bottom-of-the-column news excerpts and
> > wry comments. Well, several years ago I noticed a simile in a New Yorker
> > article that described some kind of clog or bottleneck as "like kudzu in a
> > southern waterway."  I clipped it out and mailed it to The New Yorker with
> > a note suggesting that perhaps the clog was more like water hyacinth
> > blocking a southern highway.  Never heard a word in response.
> >
> >
> > Dr. Jon Kukla, Executive Vice-President
> > Red Hill - The Patrick Henry National Memorial
> > 1250 Red Hill Road
> > Brookneal, Virginia 24528
> > www.redhill.org