Johnvey.com - Purveyor of Fine Words » Blog Archive

December 23, 2007

December 23 2007

The best page in the universe

According to Google, I am the second-most popular “purveyor of [insert genre here]” in the world, bested only by the purveyor of the world’s finest teas, Upton Tea Import. Being second in this list is lamentable, but under the circumstances not a terrible position considering that I have a better rank than the leading purveyor of fine needlework and supplies, and the purveyor of EarthBalls and Giant Globes. Gloating aside, how the moniker “purveyor of” came into being merits some discussion. C.M. recently asked,

You use the line “purveyor of fine words.” Before commandeering this line, did you look into its etymology? For example, what is correct “fine purveyor of…” or “purveyor of fine…”? Oddly, there is not much online by way of a discussion. There are of course several instances of people using the phrases both ways. I did come across a book about the history of purveyance and it talked about “fine purveyors” as those who procured better cuts of meat or poultry, as opposed to the “coarse purveyors.” However, these days, everyone claims to be a “purveyor of fine something”. I just wonder if they are interchangeable or if one is more correct than the other. For obvious reasons, you seemed like a good person to ask, being a self-titled “purveyor of fine words” and all.

Well, I chose the tagline ‘purveyor of fine words’ as a response to the typical self-deprecating blog name that is so common these days — ones that mix and match words like ‘rambling’, ‘thoughts’, ‘random’, ‘drivel’, ‘brain farts’. I subscribe to one blog that is titled, “Continuing Intermittent Incoherency“, which sounds like the author picked up some kind of Mad-Lib for blog names for inspiration. “Randomised nonsense” and “The Solipsistic Sayings of a Random Infidel” also seem to have been derived from the same template.

Perhaps these titles are a byproduct of today’s disclaimer-ridden society, where consumers are too moronic to realize that a cup of coffee contains scalding hot liquid, or that a pack of peanuts “may contain nuts”, or that power tool enthusiasts should not “attempt to stop a chainsaw with [their] hand”. In the online world, this warning zealotry translates into prefacing statements with redundant acronyms like FWIW or IMHO, which authors use to ostensibly indemnify themselves against criticism. “IMHO, you’re nothing but a fucktard and the best part of you ran down the crack of your momma’s ass”, becomes a quaint jest I suppose. In order to buck this trend, I opted to go big instead and inflate myself to gourmet proportions, and thus I promoted myself to a purveyor of fine words.

In response to C.M.’s question, I don’t have any more insight into the etymology of the phrase, as mine merely parodies Dean & Deluca’s tag line of “Purveyors of Fine Foods and Kitchenware”. I would say that “purveyors of fine…” is much more prevalent than “fine purveyors…” insofar as it’s difficult to explain the difference between a “purveyor” and a “fine purveyor” (maybe the purveyor is very attractive?), whereas the difference between “food” and “fine food” immediately conjures up contrasting images of corn dogs and Iranian caviar.

1 Comment »

Apparently Santa must have brought you some page-rank.. because when it comes to “perveyor of”.. you’re number one now!..

Comment by Michael Wilde — December 26, 2007 @ 10:41 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Reading

Viewing

Linking

Here's a clip from the This American Life TV show about a hot dog joint in Chicago called The Wieners Circle. On weekend nights after the bars close, the staff and drunken patrons yell verbal abuse at one another like prison inmates or Jerry Springer's guests.

This, this free-for-all has doubled their business, Larry and Barry figure. They end up seeing a side of people that, honestly, changes how you feel about everybody. You really wish you never saw it.

There are several other Wieners Circle videos on YouTube, including one where a customer orders a chocolate shake, throws down $40, and one of the workers begins to take her shirt off. (via delicious ghost)
(link)
According to a boat name database, here are the top 15 boat names:

Orion
Zephyr
Stargazer
Free Spirit
TBD
Cheers
Mariah
Solitude
Sandpiper
Calypso
Banana Wind
MoonDance
PATRIOT
Mental Floss
valhalla

(link)
The internet is an excellent machine for revealing ignorance. Until a few hours ago, I didn't know that the Romani people (also commonly referred to as Gypsies) are a distinct ethnic group that originated in India about a millennia ago. I had always assumed that being a Gypsy was more of a religious or cultural thing.
(link)
The second in an unplanned series of posts about the pitfalls of an elite education: John Summers on teaching the banal and privileged at Harvard.

In the first meeting of my first seminar of my first year, Kushner's son Jared entered my classroom and promptly took the seat across from mine, sharing the room, so to speak. I was drawing an annual salary of $15,500 (£7,700) and borrowing the remainder for survival in Cambridge, in order that he might be given the best possible education. Jared later purchased The New York Observer for $10 million, part of which he made buying and selling real estate while also attending my seminar. As publisher, one of his first moves was to reduce pay for the Observer's stable of book reviewers. I had been writing reviews for the Observer in an effort to pay my debts.

From earlier in the week: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education. Also relevant here is the growing discussion of gigantic college endowments and how best to use them.
(link)
Too Weird for The Wire, a story of a number of Baltimore drug dealers and their unusual "flesh-and-blood" defense in federal court. It's a tactic used by white supremacists and other US isolationists groups in tax evasion cases and the like.

"I am not a defendant," Mitchell declared. "I do not have attorneys." The court "lacks territorial jurisdiction over me," he argued, to the amazement of his lawyers. To support these contentions, he cited decades-old acts of Congress involving the abandonment of the gold standard and the creation of the Federal Reserve. Judge Davis, a Baltimore-born African American in his late fifties, tried to interrupt. "I object," Mitchell repeated robotically. Shelly Martin and Shelton Harris followed Mitchell to the microphone, giving the same speech verbatim. Their attorneys tried to intervene, but when Harris's lawyer leaned over to speak to him, Harris shoved him away.

David Simon, I believe you've got enough here for a sixth season of The Wire. Hop to.
(link)
Constructing new LEED-certified green buildings is all well and good, but if they're further from your workers' homes and you have to tear down perfectly good old buildings to do so, the hoped-for energy savings are wasted.

Embodied energy. Another term unlovely to the ear, it's one with which preservationists need to get comfortable. In two words, it neatly encapsulates a persuasive rationale for sustaining old buildings rather than building from scratch. When people talk about energy use and buildings, they invariably mean operating energy: how much energy a building -- whether new or old -- will use from today forward for heating, cooling, and illumination. Starting at this point of analysis -- the present -- new will often trump old. But the analysis takes into account neither the energy that's already bound up in preexisting buildings nor the energy used to construct a new green building instead of reusing an old one. "Old buildings are a fossil fuel repository," as Jackson put it, "places where we've saved energy."

If embodied energy is taken into consideration, a new building that's replaced an older building will take up to 65 years to start saving energy...and those buildings aren't really designed to last that long.
(link)
If physical theories were women.

Quantum mechanics is the girl you meet at the poetry reading. Everyone thinks she's really interesting and people you don't know are obsessed about her. You go out. It turns out that she's pretty complicated and has some issues. Later, after you've broken up, you wonder if her aura of mystery is actually just confusion.

Would like to see the list for men as well. (via snarkmarket)
(link)
A map of the world as reported by the New York Times. Countries are color coded by the amount of times they are mentioned in the Times, per capita. Greenland, Iraq, New Zealand, Iceland, and Panama are disproportionally represented.
(link)
Seed Magazine has posted Noah Kalina's photos of science labs at night. The Salk Institute is represented of course.
(link)
Fonts personified at a font conference.

Pencil, telephone, hourglass, diamonds, candle, candle, flag. Mouse, scissors, ball, mailbox, mailbox, mailbox!

That's Wingdings talking.
(link)
A collection of photos of things from around the world that cost $5.

To explore the relative value of five dollars we are collecting examples from around the world by asking people to submit photos of objects or services that cost the equivalent of $5.

(via clusterflock)
(link)

Links provided by kottke.org.

Offering

Syndicating

Feedburner RSS

2001–2005 A brief exploration through the marvelous mind of Johnvey Hwang. All content released under a Creative Commons License unless otherwise noted.

PURVEYOR OF FINE WORDS