User:Ortolan88

After all, the cultivated person’s first duty is to be always prepared to rewrite the encyclopedia.--Umberto Eco

I'm pretty happy with my contributions to these entries, many started by others, some where I put a few lines that please me for some reason, some substantially original.

• Language:A, an; The; William Strunk Jr. and The Elements of Style, bits of E.B. White, stuck in brief descriptions and examples for almost everything in the list under punctuation,

• Popular Culture: Tom and Jerry, includes first pair of that name; "deeper duck" additions to Daffy Duck;

• Rock and Roll: My as yet incomplete musings about the first rock and roll record have so far led me to Ike Turner, a key figure, a/k/a Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (The latter was my first consolidation since two articles on a nonexistent band was too much) and of course Chuck Berry and Bill Haley and his Comets; Here's Minneapolis's own Prince with the completely reasonable story behind that "unpronounceable glyph";

• Jazz: Joe King Oliver; Louis Armstrong (Satchmo) wherein I peer over the NPOV edge; Original Dixieland Jass Band; Dizzy Gillespie;

• That Spanish Tinge: Something nice about Desi Arnaz and Carmen Miranda; Castanets, a nice, clean entry; stuff about US music with a Latin influence in Latin American music, includes the "Spanish tinge" story;

• Country Music: Jimmie Rodgers; Grand Old Opry

• Politics and worse: Strategic bombing, which I arrived at via Dr. Strangelove

• Literature:Robert Louis Stevenson; Ford Madox Ford, Karel Capek;

• Lists started: Please join in on First rock and roll record, record producer, rock and roll anthem, word play, English plurals

• Removed from Most Wanted list: Copra, NTIA Manual of Regulations and Procedures for Federal Radio Frequency Management

I think copra is a good example of an encyclopedia article as opposed to a dictionary definition.

I try to keep my entries concise, but I'm a sucker for an illuminating anecdote.

I enjoy adding a little bit to an entry and then taunting someone else into doing the job right with provocative summary comments. I also like fixing links and adding links and sticking summaries in near the top of entries. I did all that with Julius Caesar which other people have vastly improved. I also like the two paragraphs on tactics that I added to Coup d'etat. I only put a few words in Uncle Tom, but someone wrote it after I almost, but not quite flatly, wrote that Louis Armstrong was not one.

[mailto: [email protected] Tom Parmenter]