Simanaitis Says

On cars, old, new and future; science & technology; vintage airplanes, computer flight simulation of them; Sherlockiana; our English language; travel; and other stuff

Category Archives: I Usta be an Editor Y’Know

R&T, MAY 1954

MY DAD, rest his soul, wasn’t really a car nut. But he was interested in keeping his kid off the streets and out of the pool halls. I’ve forgotten the … Continue reading →

June 1, 2016 · 5 Comments

AUTOMOTIVE ART—IN PAINT AND PRINT

IN MY CONTINUING quest of bringing a modicum of order to 33 years of R&T memorabilia, I came upon several 24 x 36-in. poster boards that were part of the … Continue reading →

May 25, 2016 · Leave a comment

IT USTA BE SAID…

COLLOQUIALISMS ARE here today and gone tomorrow. But like this temporal analysis, some remain. A little research and some thinking revealed several gems of both categories, which follow in no … Continue reading →

May 3, 2016 · 1 Comment

GOVERNING BY WORD

WHAT WITH our being in the midst of highly divisive presidential campaigns, it’s a good time to discuss the etymology of words that are associated with how people rule themselves—or … Continue reading →

April 21, 2016 · 3 Comments

CLEARING INNES IRELAND’S NAME

GRAND PRIX driver and R&T contributor Innes Ireland was larger than life. He was also a good friend, even before I cleared his name with the City of Needles, County … Continue reading →

April 14, 2016 · 6 Comments

AN EDITOR’S DELIGHT—AND A DISCLOSURE

RESEARCHING AND COMPOSING SimanaitisSays.com is great fun. As the dotty old woman said, “I never know quite what I’m going to say until I say it.” And so it is … Continue reading →

April 13, 2016 · 6 Comments

RED & TRACK

WE USED TO joke that the real name of the magazine was Red & Track. Subscribers, bless their hearts, would enjoy a magazine whatever was on the cover. But a … Continue reading →

April 10, 2016 · 8 Comments

SHAKESPEARE FIRST FOLIO

IT’S NOT LIKE they’ve just found the original typewriter ribbon from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. On the other hand, there were perhaps no more than 750 … Continue reading →

April 8, 2016 · 2 Comments

THIRD PERSON SINGULAR

THE LINGUISTIC gender war in English has been raging over the third person pronoun, particularly in its singular personal form: he/him, masculine, and she/her, feminine. There are those, macho, feminist, … Continue reading →

April 7, 2016 · 6 Comments

BEAR WITH ME, DEAR, AS I SPEAK CREATIVELY

I MAY have had more pressing matters on my mind, but I was also musing on the difficulties of the English language, its pronunciation and spelling. It’s quite enough for … Continue reading →

April 5, 2016 · 8 Comments