The author of the piece, Nathan Heller, emailed me and defended his language usage. I've added that to the post — with his permission — so go back here if you'd like to read it.
"Now, whether Norm Macdonald's comic persona was that of a loafer; a sponger and a loafer; a sponger, a loafer, and a worthless idler; or simply a man down on his luck is a matter I'll gladly turn over to the authorities...."
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Interesting that word people take their words very personally. I'm glad of it. You and Mr. Heller are a dying breed- linguistic monitors- of which this society is in very great need. The English language, as properly spoken and written in words, seems to be going away by design.
Great of you to post his letter. But not surprising as you allow so many of us the room to trip over our own thoughts here.
Norm wasn't a Deadbeat. There's nothing in his comic persona that suggested a "deadbeat". One might as well call Rodney Dangerfield a "deadbeat". Or Jerry Seinfeld.
Its the wrong word. A Lambent attempt to prove himself right.
He defends 'lambent with' "but dictionaries make clear that it's most often associated with ..." after declaring that he is using some little recognized sense of "deadbeat," a word in common use I have never heard associated with the concept of "sponge" or "moocher" or any of the other plentiful terms the language has for the behavior described.
You know where you do get those senses for deadbeat though? Thesaurus.com.... Just saying.
Both cases it's bad writing because the reader has to somehow guess which sense of the term he is using, since it's unclear from the context. So in both cases he should have used more precisely focussed words, as a matter of clear communication, though I can forgive lambent. He went after the lightening, but only managed the lightening bug.
Thesaurus.com also gives "lambent" for "radiant," coincidentally enough. https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/radiant
Can I just say too that I really appreciate Althouse's attention to issues of grammar, and language in general. When she finally convinced me on the sentence diagramming thing it opened a new world to me and I read differently now, more deliberately.
I love his defense of "lambent." That it's exactly the right word, almost uniquely the right word. That's what writers search for, and sometimes find. Even if you have to look it up when reading what they write. I'm so old I can remember when it was fun when a piece sent you careening to the dictionary.
To my relief it turns out that the Packers don’t play at “Lambent Field” after all.
When Prof Ann Althouse speaks, people listen.
Heller makes a fine defense of usages I also thought were a little hinky.
An interesting and courteous response. Language, they say, is a living, evolving thing and not a pickled specimen. Heller appeals to the dictionaries, but they always define language as it was spoken at the time of the compilation of the dictionary. Most people now think of deadbeat in the way it is used in deadbeat dad. He's on better ground with lambent. Lambent has a kind of flickering meaning. Most people do not use lambent with a precise understanding of the word. Most people know mauve is a color, but don't give a fuchsia about its precise shade.
I would say the character Norm played in "Dirty Work" could be considered "deadbeat".
From Wiki: "As adults, after losing fourteen jobs in three months and being dumped by his girlfriend..."
That period in film was an era of Loser Comedy, often played by SNL vets (Farley, Spade, Sandler, Schneider, etc)
However, the other SNL vets aimed for Lovable Loser status -- they were often child-like, basically harmless and really wanted you to like them.
Norm's character in "Dirty Work", however, is decidedly not innocently. child-like, nor harmless: he has a stunted emotional maturity, but fully in the context of a grown man.
As such, "Dirty Work" wasn't a hit: average moviegoers want their losers child-like and Lovable, not as an adult creating their havoc on purpose.
I was going to tie this into the Martin Short film "Clifford", but I think I'll just leave it here for now.
I am Laslo.
I had the impression that /lambent/ meant a flame on its last legs >>> iow a deadbeat flame but then looks like the word is a glaring contradiction!
lambent
[ˈlambənt]
ADJECTIVE
literary
(of light or fire) glowing, gleaming, or flickering with a soft radiance.
"the magical, lambent light of the north"
synonyms:
shining · light · brilliant · vivid · blazing · dazzling · beaming · intense · glaring · sparkling · flashing · glittering · scintillating · gleaming · glowing · aglow · twinkling · flickering · glistening · shimmering · illuminated · lit · lighted · ablaze · luminous · luminescent · [more]
The previous remarks about a descending baseline are relevant to McDonald's delivery. McDonald made the most mordant remarks possible about some celebrities, but he didn't bite down like a lion, but more like he was nibbling on a cocktail sandwich. The flat affect made the remarks seem all the more startling......I became more aware and appreciative of him after his death. I saw him talking about Donald Trump. He made a few jokes about Trump, but they weren't malicious and he gave Trump his due. So far as I know, he is the only comedian to have ever addressed Trump in such a way. McDonald also believed in God and had some reservations about abortion....Such a man cannot be praised, not even in death. The feminists now have the long knives out for him. He apparently behaved in an objectionable way with some waitresses and fans. Not Harvey Weinstein objectionable, but Cuomo level objectionable. Of course, McDonald never had any real power over the women he got handy with, but it's not the power differential that counts in such situations: it's whether or not you believe in abortion.
I think the dictionaries are now wrong. Mr. Heller is trying to use “deadbeat” in the old sense, but he cannot bring back the past. Deadbeat now means “a person who does not pay what he owes”. It is no longer a synonym for “loafer”. Words sometimes change their meaning over time and this is an example. As for “lambent” - it is a rarely used word. It brings to mind Dickens and London of the Victorian age. How applicable to a Canadian comic who died in 2021? Not very much but then I was never a fan of Norm Macdonald.
Norm was such a loafer and deadbeat that he couldn't be bothered to capitalize the "D" in MacDonald.
Heller's apology seems to rest on these two foundations:
1. In the OED, the first definition of "deadbeat" is "loafer," and
2. Macdonald once claimed to go to parties in order to get sandwiches.
Notwithstanding the author's attempt to I do not retract my judgment that 'deadbeat' feels like an error.
In the USA, where I and The New Yorker both live, the first definition of "deadbeat" is "a person who deliberately avoids paying debts or neglects responsibilities." It has had this meaning for decades, long before the euphemism "deadbeat dad" was invented.
But even if we go ahead and accept the "loafer" meaning instead, I see no cause to refer to "Macdonald's deadbeat persona" as though he had built some kind of character around being idle and avoiding work. Charlie Chaplin? Sure. Jimmy Buffett? Fine. Pauly Shore? OK. But Norm? I don't see it, not even a little.
I still think Heller made a mistake; he meant to use some other word, or used "deadbeat" because he thought it meant something else. And now he is doing his best not to have to admit that error. I might even think that this amounts to a deliberate neglect of his responsibilities.
Norm was not a deadbeat - a loafer, sponger or idler, not even as a comic persona. He was obviously playing with certain conventions - rapid fire delivery, easily accessible references, taking endless time (which TV hates). Maybe highly pressured TV people saw that as being a deadbeat, as sponging off them. But he was funnier than they were and moved faster in his responses so he was absolutely not a sponger or idler.
But now that I've read what Heller meant by "lambent" it does seem like good try at getting at a certain unique quality, at a humor that wasn't blazing, biting, acid, dark; that wasn't really folksy. Was this humor then, "lambent" like a soft clear flame, a candle vs. florescent light? Maybe more like Mercutio - Having been stabbed and realizing he is dying Mercutio answers someone who says the wound doesn't look bad:
"No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man."
Deadbeat means like deadbeat dad. Words shift and this one has shifted.
You can use it to play tricks by combining old and new meanings (See Empson, The Structure of Complex Words) but here it just means deadbeat in the modern sense.
Is Nathan Heller a jealous man? Or a jealous and hateful man, or a jealous and hateful Jew with a bias against Christians? Or is Heller an envious religion and ethic bigot with a slippery grasp of English?
I don't know, but somebody in authority could find out with a judicious application of red-hot tongs.
On a lighter note, Althousians should visit Instapundit for an enlightening dissection of a hoary myth that was repeated to me by at least three of my professors, and I never took a journalism course, even for fun.
I've got to side with Heller on this one. Keep in mind that Althouse would exclude "garner" from the language. Can't have superfluous words. That means imposing pretty strict rules on the boundaries of the extensions of words.
Her view puts me in mind of John Wilkins attempt to create a "philosophical language" — a hopeless project if ever there was one. I know of the Wilkins work from reading Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver. And now I have gone off and read about Wilkins today, and have even read Wilkins himself. Quoting from a Borges essay, "Wilkins's system decomposes the entire universe of 'things and notions' into successively smaller divisions and subdivisions ... . Wilkins intended for these conceptual building blocks to be recombined to represent anything on earth or in heaven." (Wiki on Borges on Wilkins.)
And here I find a reference to one of my favorite passages by any author in any language: "[Borges] fancifully likens Wilkins's classification scheme to a 'certain Chinese encyclopedia,' likely fictitious, but attributed to Franz Kuhn, called the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge, said to divide animals into '(a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in the present classification, (i) those that tremble as if they are mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that look like flies from a long way off.' "
Norm was an ascetic, in life and in comedy. He was once told by a psychiatrist, "You're fixating on gambling in order to escape your real thoughts." To which Norm replied, "Isn’t that why you do everything in life?"
So Heller is a liar, too. There is nothing wrong with just admitting that he fucked up in using the wrong word. It is the kind of error that isn't even one of not knowing that he used the wrong word- but that his fingers just typed the wrong one. It happens to me all the time with homophones and compound words that share similar first parts.
If Nathan were stealthier he would have noted Macdonald was a compulsive gambler who lost everything he owned, including his house, three separate times.
In Macdonald's defense, "Gambling addiction is a disease but it's the only disease that can win you money."
I still struggle is "are" and "is". sad.
Language evolves and I’ll take an interesting new usage over the nitpicking, which makes one a bit of a bore…but as right thinking American my belief is if it floats your boat have at it.
The defense was a bit too technical but a polite parry…
He meant to say "deadpan".
"We are in mourning today for the people who lost their lives due to the derailment of the Empire Builder train Saturday, near Joplin, Montana, on the BNSF Railway, as well as the many others who were injured. We have no words that can adequately express our sorrow for those who lost a loved one or who were hurt in this horrible event. They are in our thoughts and prayers..." Amtrak CEO
“Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. and Mrs. Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father, or brother was killed, wounded, or reported missing in action.” Catch-22
If you're funny, you do comedy
If you're not funny, you write about Comedy.
Its unintentionally funny to go on Youtube and read comments about Norm's comedy technique from a bunch of Dumbos who no one has heard of. Like this comment from Youtube: "Norm's jokes aren't funny, but his delivery is so great he makes people laugh"
Thanks professor. who are you again? LOL.
Further discussion is otiose.
Deadbeats don’t deliver, deadpan or otherwise. Heller needs to read up on the rules of holes, starting at the first one.
Norm shared what kind of life he lived on a podcast...
If one follows deadbeat down a slightly different path to wastrel to prodigal, one comes to imprudent, but do not go so far as injudicious. To be imprudent is not showing care for the consequences of an action. The OJ jokes demonstrated Norm's imprudent nature by pushing that particular envelope to the firing point. He did so purposely.
"Deadbeat" as one who does not pay one's debts, a layabout, a lazy person, a feckless good-for-nothing is an Americanism. The rest of the English-speaking world has a wider understanding of "deadbeat" that does include Norm Macdonald as imprudent and impudent.
Sounds like Heller goofed with his use of "deadbeat" and doesn't want to admit it.
I like a thesaurus; I have been working on a novel for months and a thesaurus is essential. But a thesaurus can also be a trap. I would never use a word from a thesaurus that I wasn't already familiar with, which would have ruled out lambent, but then I won't even use "limpid," a word whose meaning is clear (chuckles at own joke) because I am aiming for a wider readership than self congratulatory vocabulary snobs. But then again, if I come across the need for an unusual word, or word sense, where looking it up might give the reader further insight into the world of the novel, or it's just really precisely the word I need and saves writing a bunch of other words, I go with it. 'Offing' is an example, when used in its naval sense. Fortunately, I don't depend on my writing to keep the heat on.
Nathan Heller may have exonerated himself regarding his uses of “deadbeat” and “lambent” in his piece on Norm Macdonald, but he reveals he has no business writing about Macdonald at all.
In his reply to AA’s original post, Heller says Macdonald was “a comic with a small repertoire of suicide-related jokes.” Perhaps Heller has confused Norm with Richard Lewis.
Moreover, if Heller holds the bizarrely mistaken view that Macdonald’s métier was “suicide-related jokes,” how would “joy”—lambent or otherwise—apply?
In any event, I'm puzzled by AA's continued admiration for the New Yorker, which has been in protracted decline since it was vandalized by Tina Brown in the nineties.
I think it's awesome that he replied! I will only say that if you are relying on the 3rd or 4th definition of a word you've used, you are engaged in a little CYA. But that's fine with me. If you write for a living though, clarity should be thing #1.
Althouse gets results.
I imagine he had the same fight with his editor. I think the editor is right.
I learned a new urbanism today that may apply to this
hurr durr
Socrates was a deadbeat, a loafer, an idler. Norm Macdonald was doing in his humble medium what Socrates or Mark Twain did -- playing the "ordinary guy" who saw through the verbiage of specialists and could say that the emperor had no clothes. There are a lot of people like that in the media and in real life. Many of them really don't see especially deeply and are captives of their own preconceptions, but Norm was entertaining and could really be insightful. The New Yorker really doesn't want to hear from "ordinary [straight, white, male] guys and doesn't appreciate those who see through their pretensions, so of course they would use his death try to cut him down.
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