Casey Sailer had been with the Times Union for almost 5
years. He had a well-deserved reputation
as being the type of reporter that cared more about how his story was
punctuated than he did about actually discovering facts. It was said that Casey would much rather
investigate the origin and use of a single word than he would a tip about
bribes in the legislature.
Casey had previously worked at the Burlington Free Press in
Burlington Vermont where he rose from covering local farmers markets and High
School Theater to become the host of a public television series called “Casey
and Proust – life as a dilettante”. The
rumor was he had to leave Vermont after being caught in flagrante delicto with
an English teacher at Bellows Free Academy in Swanton Vermont.
Perhaps the most glaring example of Casey’s lack of
reporting skills but devotion to correct grammar occurred soon after he became
the political reporter for the Times Union.
While waiting for former Majority Leader Andrews to arrive in court to
face public corruption charges Casey was interviewing Andrews then chief of
staff, Sam Casey. Sam mentioned to Casey
that he thought it was a shame that Andrews had to run the gauntlet of
reporters waiting for him and Casey spent the next 30 minutes lecturing and
arguing with Sam that the correct term was gantlet not gauntlet and completely
missed Andrews statement that then US attorney now Judge Sudsberry had promised
Andrews that he wouldn’t be convicted in return for his judgeship. Casey left court smugly assured that he had
triumphed over Sam and Sam left looking for a new job, one I helped him land
with Assemblyman Munro. It might take a while
but I knew Sam was itching to throw down the gauntlet and engage in linguistic
combat with Casey.
I never allowed myself to be drawn into Casey’s world of grammar
and punctuation, in fact I always tried to avoid sending anything in writing to
Casey unless it was first proofread by I. M Hayakawa. But I would talk to him on the phone, never
in person. I literally became physically
ill if I had to see Casey. His attempt
to promote his image was largely centered on his bicycle, his hardcover copy of
Proust that he carried everywhere and his hipster glasses that made him look
like every other middle aged white douchebag from Brooklyn although Casey had
never been to Brooklyn since it had too many minorities walking around for his
taste. In fact, Casey was known as a
closet racist if for no other reason than Ebonics.
With all these thoughts in mind I called Casey.
“Casey Sailer, state your purpose please”
“Yo Case it’s Leathers what be crackin brah?”
“Excuse me? I don’t
understand”
“Casey I be needing to ax you a question about hoes and blow”
“Mr. Leatherbaum are you attempting to be humorous?”
“I was but I’m sure it was lost on you, you pompous little dilettante
bitch”
“Mr. Leatherbaum if I could ask you a couple of questions
about Ravi Kamatrappa and Richard Siler?”
“You may”
“Do you know them both?”
“I believe that should be “do you know both of them?”
“Well actually Mr. Leatherbaum according to my pocket copy
of the grammarist my usage is preferred in the majority of English speaking
countries with white populations in excess of 80%”
“Like Burlington Vermont?”
“Precisely”
“Yes Casey I know both of them”
“And are you aware that Mr. Kamatrappa was arrested last
evening with Mr. Siler’s wife in a stolen McLaren”
“The story I heard was it was a Jaguar and that Ravi was
with a prostitute from the Kings Klub a high end escort service that our
elected officials are using”
“A Jaguar you say not a McLaren?”
“Correct”
“Well they are both English sports cars”
“Actually the Jaguar is a sedan”
“Now that could be important, do you know what color the
sedan was?
“Actually Casey the story I heard was that Ravi got set up
with this prostitute by Israeli drug dealers working for Richard, but that’s just
a rumor”
“Israeli’s? Are you sure I thought Ravi was from India”
“Well they both start with an I, don’t they”
“ Are you aware that In Modern English spelling, i represents several different sounds, either the diphthong /aɪ/ ("long i") as in kite, the short /ɪ/ as in bill, or the ee sound /iː/ in the last syllable of machine. The diphthong /aɪ/ developed from Middle English /iː/ through a series of vowel shifts. In the Great Vowel Shift, Middle English /iː/ changed to Early Modern English /ei/, which later changed to /əi/ and finally to the Modern English diphthong /aɪ/ in General American and Received Pronunciation. Because the diphthong /aɪ/ developed from a Middle English long vowel, it is called long i in traditional English grammar.[citation needed]
The English
first-person singular nominative pronoun is "I", pronounced /aɪ/ and always written with a capital letter.
This pattern arose for basically the same reason that lowercase "i"
acquired a dot: so it wouldn't get lost in manuscripts before the age of
printing:
The capitalized
“I” first showed up about 1250 in the northern and midland dialects of England,
according to the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology. Chambers
notes, however, that the capitalized form didn’t become established in the
south of England “until the 1700s (although it appears sporadically before that
time).””
“That’s very
informative you pompous little shit but didn’t you hear me tell you that Ravi
was set up by Richard Siler and that Richard is connected to Israeli criminals
that are running an escort service that provides prostitutes to elected
officials?”
“I’m not sure
what you are trying to tell me Mr. Leatherbaum and I have a story to write look
for it in tomorrow’s Times Union”
The following
days Times Union had a story by Casey Sailer with the following first
paragraph:
Indian academic
Ravi Kamatrappa was arrested in lobbyist Richard Siler’s English sedan. Sources allege that an Israeli dating service
may have arranged companionship for Mr. Kamatrappa and others.
As Cadillac
Curtis used to tell me you can’t fix stupid.
It was time to
call Dante again.
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