Remember your audience

From today's New York Times:

...[P]erhaps we have stopped pushing the save-get key for “the first woman to become          .”

Now I've worked in newspapers, and I think most people can figure out, from context if not from the words, that a “save-get key” is a key on the keyboard that lets the user quickly paste in a commonly-used phrase. It's like speed-dial for your word processor. But I wonder if anyone in the writing-editing chain even noticed that it's journalism jargon.

Remember your audience

From today's New York Times:

...[P]erhaps we have stopped pushing the save-get key for “the first woman to become          .”

Now I've worked in newspapers, and I think most people can figure out, from context if not from the words, that a “save-get key” is a key on the keyboard that lets the user quickly paste in a commonly-used phrase. It's like speed-dial for your word processor. But I wonder if anyone in the writing-editing chain even noticed that it's journalism jargon.

Some things don't change, even after 2,000 years

Near the beginning of Tractate Pesachim, the Talmud poses the following problem: If there is a deep hole in the wall, one is only obligated to search for chametz a short distance into the hole "because of the danger of scorpions;" yet there is a principle that "While one is engaged in a mitzvah one is protected from danger." Since the search for chametz is a mitzvah, why do we worry about scorpions?

The Talmud's answer is that one who is searching for chametz also invariably has in mind to find various things that got misplaced over the year, and so one's protection from danger is not absolute.

So far we've found the TV remote, two pennies, a tortilla chip (Chametz gamur! Jackpot!), an unpopped popcorn kernel (Kitnyot!), a handful of Lego pieces....

But no scorpions.

Some things don't change, even after 2,000 years

Near the beginning of Tractate Pesachim, the Talmud poses the following problem: If there is a deep hole in the wall, one is only obligated to search for chametz a short distance into the hole "because of the danger of scorpions;" yet there is a principle that "While one is engaged in a mitzvah one is protected from danger." Since the search for chametz is a mitzvah, why do we worry about scorpions?

The Talmud's answer is that one who is searching for chametz also invariably has in mind to find various things that got misplaced over the year, and so one's protection from danger is not absolute.

So far we've found the TV remote, two pennies, a tortilla chip (Chametz gamur! Jackpot!), an unpopped popcorn kernel (Kitnyot!), a handful of Lego pieces....

But no scorpions.