another SOTA or two

[Laurence Horn]

A new, evidently quite literate and charming play on Broadway, "The Lyons", was reviewed in the Times today:
http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/theater/reviews/the-lyons-by-nicky-silver-at-vineyard-theater-review.html

It's a "savagely sentimental portrait of familial loneliness" by Nicky Silver and starring Linda Lavin, which is fine, only the family in question consists of Curtis Lyons, Lisa Lyons, Ben Lyons, and Rita Lyons, which according to the way I was brought up would make the family (and thus the name of any eponymous play) "The Lyonses".  Alternatively, the members of the family would consist of "Curtis Lyon", "Lisa Lyon", etc.  Apparently this didn't bother either the playwright or the reviewer, who doesn't mention it.  Has this shift now become inevitable?  (Well, I suppose the play could have been called "The Lyon's".) 

A much smaller and discreet SOTA:  in the equally literate "The Good Wife" on CBS this week, a well-spoken (and, of course, sexy) lawyer explains that she's interested in leaving her current job at a large firm because "There are too fifedoms" there.  (Rhymes with "wifedom".)   Lots of parades, I'm thinking.  

OK, prescriptivist goggles doffed now.

LH 

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