[Ads-l] How often does a headline like this come up?

Mark Mandel thnidu at GMAIL.COM
Sat Mar 11 07:20:03 UTC 2017


Here's the letter I just sent to a magazine that's part of the *Daily
Pennsylvanian*, a newspaper of the campus of the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia, where I live. I've edited it somewhat for clarity. The
article referred to is about the fire that destroyed a restaurant, Café
Renata, just two years ago, and how the local business community pitched in
to help the owners recover and start a new restaurant, Renata's Kitchen,
not far away.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Mark Mandel" <thnidu at gmail.com>
Date: Mar 11, 2017 2:04 AM
Subject: Only fifty days late
To:  *[the editor, to whom all correspondence is directed]*


I finally found the January 19 issue of *34th Street* under all the junk in
my room and read the article I was keeping it for: the cover story,
"Renata's Rebirth". I had two reasons. The first is that I live close to
Renata's Kitchen and eat there, or buy to go, several times each week. Kate
and Yasser *[the couple who run the place]* are very fine folks, and I'm
proud to call them my friends.

The second reason is the title. I'm a linguist, retired from Penn, and that
title struck me the moment I saw it. Was it just serendipity, or did you or
David Murrell *[author of the article]* know that the name Renata is Latin
for "reborn"? What a smashing cover story title! A shame only maybe one
percent or fewer of those who saw it would know.

Mark Mandel

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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