Margalit Fox channels Dorothy Parker?

[Laurence Horn]

On Aug 14, 2012, at 9:12 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> At 8/14/2012 08:37 PM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>> On Aug 14, 2012, at 5:24 PM, Laurence Horn wrote, on Margalit Fox:
>> 
>> > "The advice she offered Cosmopolitan's readers on winning the
>> right friends and influencing the right people was squarely in the
>> tradition of Dale Carnegie, if less vertically inclined."
>> >
>> > LH, wishing *all* NYT obituary writers had the advantage of
>> training in linguistics like the artful Ms. Fox
>> 
>> she's definitely the Death Notice Star at the NYT.
> 
> I didn't realize that -- I don't often vet the bylines for
> obituaries.  (The best I can do is often recognize Natalie Angier's
> style/choice of topics on the Science pages; viz. today.)  And
> prolific and focused -- her c. vitae, at
> http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/f/margalit_fox/index.html,
> shows many.  Including one line I remember relishing:  "Ms. Zepos was
> an international authority on the buying, selling, making and above
> all the almost transcendental experience of eating cheese."
> 

There's a nice one she wrote for Jim McCawley in 1999 that you can find by searching the Margalit Fox site, or directly at 
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/14/arts/james-d-mccawley-linguist-who-stirred-a-rift-dies-at-61.html

She doesn't scant his accomplishments in developing generative semantics or in preparing pigs' ears in garlic sauce.

LH

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