Links for 9.3.09: Let the wild rumpus BEGIN, for god’s sake
by Josh Kimball
*First and foremost: The climactic line from “Where the Wild Things Are” should not be “Let the wild rumpus start.”
Again, you do not LET things START, even if you are some kid. Even my 2-year-old little dude knows that if you’re letting, you are beginning. He’s two. This is obvious. You’re seven or eight? It’s not even a question. Don’t try to pawn this off on the ignorance of youth.
FurtherMORE, you can’t argue that “start” is “crisp,” and therefore makes the line sound better at the same time you argue that it’s something that a KID would say. They’re mutually exclusive arguments. Pick one. They’re both wrong. (This is not exactly a wild rumpus, but it’s the NYT‘s Spike Jonze profile.) Goodbye forever.
*Update: Watching a trailer, it appears that “start” is what’s in the movie. Thanks for riling me up for nothing. FURTHER UPDATE: In Eggers’ novelized version of the story, it is “begin.” AS IT SHOULD BE. Goodbye.
*Race relations: This article from Chicago magazine, “A Mugging on Lake Street,” will depress you. Fuck.
*Reading: The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy weighs in on David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” as a part of the reading project “Infinite Summer.” I always avoided the longer works of Wallace due to their length. And the do-rag, of course. [shorties]
*Local: Did you know we have hip-hop in St. Paul? It’s a fact. Well, kinda. Here’s Labratz talking Pig’s Eye geography. I take the 61 bus to work. For your information. [mnspeak]
*Twitter: The twitter user @ShitMyDadySays got a book deal. TWOOK. It is coined. If it wasn’t already. I can’t bring myself to look.
firstly I TOTALLY REMEMBER it with “begin”
as does everyone we asked and google searches pull up as many “begins” as Starts”
But books are better then the web.
the line in my OLD OLD edition of Where the wild things are Says
“let the Wild Rumpus Start”
I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU! It should be BEGIN!
even our brains remember it the correct way and not the way it is written.
The phrase is “palm off” not “pawn off”: “to pawn” is to trade an item for a loan of money; “to palm” is a magician’s (or card sharp’s) slight of hand to move an object from one place to another undetected. So if one palms off a notion or idea, one is trying to sneakily slip something past one’s audience. I have no idea what “pawning off” would look like.
Huh. Seems fine according to M-W. But maybe you’re thinking pre-1832?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pawn%20off