The Data Port

Extra!

Some readers may have missed Andrew Alexander’s column in Sunday’s Washington Post. Alexander is the ombudsman at the Post and his column reported a major collapse of the Post’s Chinese Wall. Do take time to read it all.

The Post planned to sell access to a series of 11 off-the-record “salons,” intimate dinners at the home of publisher Katherine Weymouth. Alexander reports that the sponsorship fee would be up to $25,000.

Alexander’s lede: “The Washington Post’s ill-fated plan to sell sponsorships of off-the-record “salons” was an ethical lapse of monumental proportions.”

Might have been pointless, too. Pointless since the gatherings of Washington movers and shakers would be off the record.

Alexander again: “The Post’s internal stylebook equates “background” with “not for attribution,” meaning that statements and information can be reported and attributed to a confidential source.  But ‘off the record’ means ‘information cannot be used, either in the paper or in further reporting.’ So for newsroom personnel, any information gleaned at a salon dinner would be useless.”

Politico.com broke the story on July 2nd, disclosing a flyer soliciting sponsorship for an event scheduled for July 21st.

Alexander concludes: “The Post’s reputation now carries a lasting stain.”

Frankly, my dears, I don’t believe so; unless by “lasting” you mean no more than two weeks. Memories are short.

What’s oft been thought, but ne’er so well expressed…as the poet says…is exactly how badly the world can scrape against our nervous systems.

We need a new unit of measurement, a standard unit by which we measure and refer to the degree of annoyance, irritation, and aggravation caused by people, things or  states of affairs.

Let’s call this unit the Agro. Unlike the ohm or the watt its name is not derived from the name of a famous scientist. Trust me…there was no Ludovicus Agro or any such person.

According to the American Dictionary of Obscure Usage the term was first employed by professor Wilhelm Sackpfennig to express his annoyance with students who came to class unprepared.

“You have caused me much agro-vations,” he would declare. Later he shortened agro-vations to agros. “Mister Johnson, your translation has caused me two agros!”

His students thought this hilarious and for a semester or two undergraduates took up the term. With Sackpfennig’s retirement the expression fell out of use. Historians of slang assume it was replaced by expressions like “bummer,” “drag,” or “downer.”

Our individual levels of resistance to an agro attack are, of course, different. In my own case my teeth are set on edge to approximately the 2.75 agro level by folks who pronounce the words “restaurateur,” “entrepreneur,” and “liqueur” as if they rhymed with  the word “sewer”.

It is particularly annoying when these people are themselves restauratooers  or entreprenooers, but having identified the level and cause of my irritability I can simply relax  with a double shot of my favorite  liquoor.

Of course driving in traffic is an agro-enhanced experience nowadays. What are we to do with  Three-Agro-Arnie,  who refuses to get in line with the rest of us when the signs announce that traffic is funneling down to one lane?

While we honor the unwritten social compact that says things will go reasonably well if we stay cool and stay in line  ol’ Three-Agro-Arnie  rushes up to the spot where the lane narrows and then expects to nose in ahead of us. Someday we’ll all close up bumper to bumper  and make him sit there staring at the construction barriers until after rush hour.

I invite you, now, to add your own Agro.