Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Witty, Taciturn, Polymathic...

Kurp ate his Wheaties this morning:
...a familiar newsroom type – the odd, wryly witty, taciturn, polymathic autodidact. They seem to flourish in particular among the ranks of copy editors and take laconic delight in the arcana of baseball statistics, French irregular verbs, Confederate Army regiments or the early recordings of Muggsy Spanier. They occupy the realm where hobbyist bleeds into reputable amateur authority and, in more serious cases, crank. Most, however, are perfectly harmless, like bloggers. 
Details here.   For early Muggsy Spanier, go here.

3 comments:

The New York Crank said...

While I was never best pals with any of the copy desk guys on the only newspaper I ever worked for that had one, this doesn't sound like anyone I might have met.

In fact, "Takes....laconic delight in the arcana of baseball statistics, French irregular verbs, Confederate Army regiments or the early recordings of Muggsy Spanier," sounds pretty much to me like somebody about a third of the way down the Autism spectrum.

Very crankily yours,
The New York Crank

Buce said...

…and a libel on copy readers, who are clearly more in the Asperger's line. Does sound like every copy reader I ever met. Maybe we nurtured a different crop in the provinces.

Asperger's is being able to name all US Veeps. Autism is being able to repeat the names in reverse order.

The New York Crank said...

Asperger's is indeed autism. The shrinks now say that autism is a spectrum, and what used to be called Asperger's is simply further down the spectrum toward normal than someone who, for example, can't speak, won't be touched, or, after a single glance, can tell you what the character count was in your last long post. (A useful skill for copy desk people, BTW.)

Check your friendly neighborhood headshrinker's copy of the latest DSM for further details. And trust me on this, The Crank's Beautiful Girlfriend was a medical doctor and a shrink. She didn't know from copyreaders, but she knew from autism.

Very crankily yours,
The New York Crank