Comments on: Book Review: Fallen Giant

By: David Merkel

David Merkel — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:44:42 +0000

I feel *so* dumb. Cor-NEIL-ius. Ugh.

By: Avocet

Avocet — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:23:34 +0000

Neil occasionally is a nickname for Cornelius.

By: David Merkel

David Merkel — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:54:16 +0000

Daniel — that is a theory of mine as well. My twist on that was that they compromised the accounting as a result.

As for Sullivan, he was competent over divisions for internal management, but not made for public interface with investors.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:06:38 +0000

Another gap I’d love to see filled: How on *earth* did Martin Sullivan gain the confidence of Hank Greenberg such that he ended up succeeding him as CEO?

A theory: Greenberg did not tolerate dissent, and thus by the end of his tenure he was surrounded only by yes-men.

By: David Merkel

David Merkel — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:24:14 +0000

Scan has more semantic range to it than you admit — you have the main meaning, I agree, but the word has enough range that my meaning is included as well:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/scan

English is a tough language because context plays a role in helping us understand the meaning of vague words.

By: David Merkel

David Merkel — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:07:29 +0000

Will look into it, though his publisher does not make it easy to get a review copy.

By: ChiliPalmer

ChiliPalmer — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:48:57 +0000

Consider this a formal request to review “End the Fed” by Ron Paul. The book was released on September 16, 2009.

Thanks for all that you do.

By: Highgamma

Highgamma — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:36:10 +0000

Uh, no. The synonym for scan is scrutinize. You can look that one up, too. Modern English or no.

William Safire died today. I only respond as a tribute to him.

By: David Merkel

David Merkel — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 04:33:13 +0000

Highgamma, I appreciate your point, but in modern English scan and skim can be synonyms in the way that I used “scan.” A scan is cursory; when I read a book, I read quickly compared to most people, but it is not cursory. I drink it in and dwell on it. I try to read every word, unless it is something that I am so familiar with that I could have written the book, in which case I skim to see if the author has gotten the salient points.

By: Highgamma

Highgamma — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 03:57:27 +0000

I apologize in advance for what I’m going to say, but it’s a pet peeve of mine.

You meant to say “skim” instead of “scan”. If you scan a book, you’ve read every word.

Sorry. You may now return to your regularly scheduled blogging.