NTMP 123: Old Spandex Legs
I'll just order new keys, thanks
New-To-Me Phrases, September 22, 2024
MC Grammar * Tweed Roosevelt * Oscar mode * Sanewashing * Cornado Alley * A plague of roofers * Old Bacon Face * Stomp clap hey ho indie
The Phrases, With Context
It’s finally fall in the Northern Hemisphere! And a happy belated Earth, Wind & Fire Day to all who celebrate. (All skate, everybody skate!)
I used to hate fall because going back to school always bummed me out, but now I’m into it. And as an adult, I can buy school supplies just because I want to. Which reminds me of one of my all-time favorite TV ads.
This week, we have offbeat names and dude-ish nicknames, Midwestern and Muppet chaos, and more.
Let’s get to it!
1. MC Grammar
The modern equivalent to Schoolhouse Rock, British rapper Jacob Mitchell, aka MC Grammar is making learning fun through music.
After dropping out of high school due to boredom, when he returned to resume his studies Mitchell wrote raps to remember what he was studying. He found his calling as a teacher, and when tasked with helping students pass a standardized text, he taught the kids a song to remember the basics. Mitchell’s teaching methods were so effective that they got students into learning and reading—especially autistic kids who didn’t thrive in a traditional classroom—and brought his entire school’s scores up.
Now he’s performing his music across Britain and has a three-book deal coming out that he describes in the NYT as “similar to ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ but slightly more street.” Mitchell’s website has tons of songs on it - “The Colon Song” made me LOL. I’m a total instant fan of this guy.
h/t to NTMP reader Deborah for this gem!
P.S. If you’re into fun and funny grammar, don’t sleep on The Oatmeal’s comics and posters.
2. Tweed Roosevelt
This phrase doesn’t have a very exciting story behind it but I love a good name so I tossed it in here. Roosevelt is Teddy Roosevelt’s grandson and his mother’s maiden name was Tweed.
Related: Previously on NTMP, I wrote about unusual Quaker names.
3. Oscar mode
This Defector post (might be paywalled) detailing Slack conversations about writer Barry Petchesky losing his keys was a fun journey. It’s a great example of taking a real-life experience and crafting it into an essay—you really never know as a writer what dumb situation you’ll find yourself in that later you can ask, “Is this anything?”
In that post, coworkers asked how thoroughly he’d checked his garbage, and NTMP fave David Roth wrote:
Yeah you gotta hop in there
Go Oscar Mode
Can you picture it? I immediately did.
I’ll be using this phrase next time I have to paw through the trash to find something I lost, which tbh I hope is never again. I’d rather use it while instructing someone ELSE to do so.
4. Sanewashing
One good result of the mainstream media’s focus on Joe Biden’s age-related decline earlier this year is that they now must reckon with their treatment of Donald Trump.
Parker Malloy wrote in The New Republic:
As Trump’s statements grow increasingly unhinged in his old age, major news outlets continue to reframe his words, presenting a dangerously misleading picture to the public. . . .
This “sanewashing” of Trump’s statements isn’t just poor journalism; it’s a form of misinformation that poses a threat to democracy. By continually reframing Trump’s incoherent and often dangerous rhetoric as conventional political discourse, major news outlets are failing in their duty to inform the public and are instead providing cover for increasingly erratic behavior from a former—and potentially future—president.
Malloy argues that political reporting needs a paradigm shift away from polishing incoherent rants under a presumption of good faith on the part of the ranter and toward presenting words as they are, with fact checks. I’m all for it. Unprecedented times call for changes like this.
5. Cornado Alley
Lyz Lenz’ Dingus of the Week column—which she’s been doing for four years—is a joy in my inbox each Friday. Often the weekly Dingus is a person, usually a conservative engaged in some sort of evil fuckery. But one week, corn sweat won the title.
I wrote about corn sweat a while ago here. If you’re unfamiliar, corn is a heavily subsidized crop that creates enough moisture to increase the humidity of entire Midwestern regions.
Here’s a great example the fun ride that is Lenz riffing on a Dingus:
So this means if you live in Cornado Alley, this time of year, you are basically breathing in the swamp crotch of agriculture.
It’s damp soy slurry out there.
We are breathing in the armpit of big ag.
Did I mention it’s like being steam rollered by the wet hairy back of the Midwest?
Did I mention that going outside feels like being buried alive in hot, soggy tater tots? Drowned in boiling ranch dressing?
In sum, it’s nasty out there.
So good!
6. A plague of roofers
In August we had a hail storm that lasted maybe five minutes. At the outset, the hail seemed large—maybe nickel-sized—and then got smaller as the storm petered out. What happened after that is something we’ve never experienced before in our time in either Illinois or Colorado (a place also known for hail).
We got more than a dozen fliers in our mailbox, and my husband and one of my kids (who does not read this newsletter) also got multiple phone calls—which is weird because they both kept their Colorado phone numbers. To top it off, we’ve had at least five roofing company reps knock on our door asking to check our roof for hail damage. I described it—aptly—as a plague of roofers.
Did a federal consumer protection law lapse or something? It’s so weird!
7. Old Bacon Face
While writing about the need for Supreme Court reform, Sharon McMahon opened with the impeachment of Supreme Court justice Samuel Chase in the early 1800s. But she added a delectable historic tidbit that Chase was known as “Old Bacon Face” due to his “reddish-brown complexion.”
Is it just me, or is it a total dude thing to bestow a lethal nickname like this that sticks to a guy for life?
Related: the story of Harold “Pie” Keller, previously on NTMP.
8. Stomp clap hey ho indie
Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day used this phrase and I CACKLED. It’s a perfect descriptor for this genre, A+, no notes.
That’s it for this week! Remember to keep making it weird, and stay furiously curious.