And that is their loss.

Anne Gwaltney
Brooklyn, NY

-----Original Message-----
>From: Melinda Skinner <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Mar 28, 2007 10:51 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] kudzu
>
>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