Steve Kass

For your entertainment, some choice quotes from Carl Paladino’s campaign web site, most with pithy commentary. Would that it were all a joke.

• “Carl will work for charter schools for the poorest of our urban students as an alterative to dysfunctional schools of today.” Unfortunately, this is our universe, not an alterative one.
• “Carl will consolidate schools to countywide districts to eliminate redundancy of administration and allow for more funds to be devoted to lowering class sizes and excellence.” If anyone knows how to lower excellence, CP does.
• “This is – and more – long, long overdue.” [No pithy commentary.]
• “I am particularly incensed Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s no-show job at a high-priced personal injury law firm.” We should all be incensed CP’s illiteracy. I am.
• “(See more HERE.)” (where HERE is not a link). Thank you no. I don’t care to see more.
• “Carl strongly support the State University at Buffalo 2020 plan and similar programs for other higher education institutions in the State to be able to grow in both size and student population with out State intrusion.” I can has cheezburger, with out State intrusion, please.
• “[Candidate for lieutenant governor Greg Edwards] graduated Panama High School in 1978 and then went to Allegany College in Pennsylvania.” Where correctly spelling the name of the college is apparently not a requirement for graduation.

Want my attention? Misspell something. Better yet, point out a misspelling with “[sic].” Even better, sicize an invasive misspelling.

Barry Petchesky sicized “miniscule” in a recent and alsowise fine Deadspin article on Paul Shirley’s Haiti fumble. Despite the fact that—as Barry put it—“Deadspin has long been [the] go-to source for professional athlete penis,” and despite the fact that Barry was on Jeopardy! last year, somehow I didn’t know Deadspin from Adam or Barry from Steve. I’m glad Barry captured my attention, and I’m happily spending this evening with him at home. Thanks, Barry!

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Today’s word is sicize.
sic·ize, sic·ise / ˈsɪ saɪz/, / ˈsɪ kaɪz/ (or sick·ize, sick·ise / ˈsɪ kaɪz/)

transitive verb
to indicate that something is a verbatim quote by using the word “sic”; Some British journalists sicize American usage; some do not.

Origin:
2010: intentional coinage by Steve Kass (http://www.stevekass.com), influenced by the words parenthesize, laicize, and sicked (past tense of sic). 

Related forms:
sicization: the act of sicizing
sicizy: / ˈsɪ sɪ zi/ a rhetorical device, specifically, the use of sicization in order to deprecate or ridicule

I hope you’ll join me next week, when the word of the day will be intertelligible.