There was a nice post a week ago at headsup: the blog about a vacation substitute for William Safire ("Humm batter batter batter" 7/16/2006). My favorite bit:
Jack Rosenthal is president of The New York Times Company Foundation. This is his 25th year as a pinch-hitter for William Safire, who is on vacation.
This may be his 25th year of being called up for a week in the majors to fill in for Safire, but he is not a pinch-hitter. Pinch-hitting for Safire would be, oh, bringing Perlman in to face a left-handed grammar question, since Safire is about .130 lifetime on grammar questions and Perlman hits them all over the lot.Our guest, on the other hand, looks ready to swing at most of the same stuff Bill does ...
And check out the part about "staying away in droves", hypercorrections, and Yogi Berra.
Posted by Mark Liberman at July 23, 2006 11:17 AM