WWPD, language police

-Yes, yes, the First Amendment, but whevs. I'm going to hereby advocate for a ban on the use of the word "fresh" to describe human physical appearance. As in 'fresh-faced,' or - thank you, paper of record, for this one - "fresh new face." It's just icky, and I say this as someone still young enough to theoretically qualify.

-Can job ads (nothing I was planning on applying for) really specify that they want "a native of a Francophone country"? This is a legit job in academia, by the way, not yet another Upper East Side French bakery with attitude. Isn't this, like, illegal? It's certainly silly - if you get a PhD in French, you damn well end up speaking French, and I say this as someone (ABD) who entered speaking French approximately as badly as anyone who's entered my program ever has. Somehow, after coursework and time-in-France and, oh, teaching in French, you just do. Sort of like how, despite having no spacial sense whatsoever and no general feel for how traffic works, I just aced practice-parallel-parking in town. What you gotta do, you gotta do.

-Terry Gross, Barbra Streisand, the perfect accompaniment to a poodle-walk. But Barbra, you do so still have a New York accent. Same as I do, basically - some words you hear it, others not. But if you think if it not as in, New Yawk, but as in, the absence of any of the other regional American accents, it's there.