Carpenter's been waiting to use [her] tired old crack since junior high school.

I also am the proud owner of an adolescent sense of humor. How come no one pays me for it?

Reading Ms. Carpenter's review I am only left
with the impression that she thought the book
was funny and worth reading. The sentence in
question scans with its literal meaning. There
is no evidence that the choice of words wasn't
inadvertent. Mr Everett's comment, however,
reeks slightly of the kind of PC paranoia that
gets upset over the use of words like "niggardly."

I agree with Northcountry. My best guess is that Carpenter grabbed the phrase (consciously or unconsciously) from somewhere else and used it because she liked the literal meaning.

If so, it's a little bit funny that she's so square that she didn't know about the second meaning, but I think the larger fault was what Amy pointed out about copy editors.

The term is in the soundtrack of the 1966 Broadway musical "Cabaret," and is used to mean the girl who is a hooker who eats pussy:

And now presenting the Cabaret Girls! Rosie! (Rosie is so called because of the color of her cheeks.) Lulu! (Oh, you like Lulu? Well, too bad! So does Rosie.) Frenchie! (You know I like to order Frenchie on the side. On your side Frenchie! Just kidding!) Texas! (Yes, Texas is from America!But she's a very cunning linguist!) Fritzie! (Oh, Fritzie, please, will you stop that! Already this week we have lost two waiters, a table and three bottles of champagne up there.) and Helga! (Helga is the baby. I'm just like a father to her. So when she's bad, I spank her. And she's very, very, very, very, very bad.)

And as for PC paranoia, I use the word "pussy" and "fuck" lots of other words here that they wouldn't use in the L.A. Times. I'm fine with use of words -- as long as they're funny and make sense -- is fine with me. This one does not, since Sandra is neither a lesbian nor a linguist. It's incorrect use of the word for no apparent reason.

And P.S. As far as I know, Todd Everett is not a P.C. guy.

Worse yet, what if Susan Carpenter is actually too dumb to understand the meaning of the joke?

Count me in as one who is too dumb/square. I had to read through all of the comments in order to get the joke.

That's no big deal, Karen, as long as you aren't the one who wrote the piece. I use jokes in my column from time to time that are on the dirty side, but that only the people who won't complain will get. Can't think of an example at the moment. But, I don't print them unless I actually get them and they aren't old and tired!

"Puns...never apologize...never explain."~Scott Adams in "Dilbert"

It was a pretty tasteless joke. I mean I'm all for humor, and even in serious work we do need a lighthearted moment now and again.

But really the joke here was of an unprofessional quality. It was quite "middle school" and it shouldn't have made it past the copy editor, who understandably probably missed it altogether.

If the reviewer wants to crack jokes for middle school, she should get a job with nickelodeon, not reviewing books.

I'm all for humor

Me, too -- this wasn't humor, just bizarrely puzzling.

"tired old crack"

Surely this was unintenional or my command of English is not what I should hope.

If she, or any other adult, didnt get it, that's very sad indeed.

"Cobwebs!"

I've got a pretty gutter mind and I never associated oral sex with that linguist statement, unitl reading all these comments to figure it out. I wouldn've taken it at face value. Someone writes, she's a linguist, works for me.

Thanks, Amy.

Just for the hell of it, I ran "cunning linguist" through Google (I can't afford Lexis/Nexis) -- 268,000 hits.

And my reference to Ms. Loh's sexual orientation was my way of explaining Carpenter's joke to those (relatively few, I'd guess) who didn't spot it right off. I'm seldom accused of being too subtle, but there you are.

She's a journalist and columnist at one of this country's major dailies, and she's not 22. Even if some "civilians" miss it, she should be smarter and know better.

Harvard's Steven Pinker and Penn's Mark Liberman are linguists -- people who study and explain language.

Sandra Tsing Loh is a humorist who uses language to amuse.

But the joke doesn't even make sense. Linguist means someone who studies languages (in common parlance, someone who speaks a number of languages), not a deft vocal performer (as opposed to an oral performer.)

And why is Throttle Jockey reviewing Sandra's book? Carpenter once describer herself as

"a motorcycle-riding blonde with a bunch of leather in her closet."

So is she hot for Tsing Loh?

I saw that “cunning linguist” in Carpenter’s review also. I chalked it up to accident and ignorance, as I could not imagine a newspaper writer being so puerile as to use this expression because he or she found it funny---or worse, thought it was a sly way to imply lesbianism. I wonder if the woman just didn’t know what she had done. The rest of her review does not exactly suggest complex thinking. The Times marches on.

of course she knows what it means. s.c. is a lesbian, for christ's sake.

Well, Sandra is not. It's completely weird to include that in a piece about her. It would be like making car mechanic jokes about me. Why?

I am so dense that I, too, did not "get" the reference; not when Kate Coe emailed it to me two days, not until I read through this post slowly. Of course, now that I see it, I can't not see it and wonder how it eluded me.

I have to believe this was unintentional on Carpenter's part. Even so, her editors should have caught it. And if it was intentional, what the eff is the point?

Sounds like she confellated two unfortunate words.

> So is she hot for Tsing Loh?

Everyone else in this town is.

> I have to believe this was
> unintentional

Yeah. There are some spiritless souls out there who enjoy fun-sounding turns of phrase more than the eroticism which coins them.

Or maybe biker babes just aren't, y'know, into it....

And by the way, when you follow the Everett link above, it turns out that the people at the Times are getting into the repo business.

To "Hudson"---

I see, so she is a lesbian for Christ.

Rip = funny.

Kate, good definition.

My goodness, I'm so shocked that a homosexual makes a sexual "joke." I've never seen that. At least in the last day or so.