For Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday, which was just a few days ago:
Comments
Open thread 6/5/2026 — 32 Comments
The use of the spelling Türkiye which has emerged only in the last year or so is one of those little things about political correctness that really irks me. Who made the decision and how did it get propagated throughout our various media? What makes Turkey so special that we now are supposed to use that country’s own spelling in an English-speaking country? We don’t say or write Deutschland, Sverige, Hellas or even Italia or España. We don’t use the umlaut in English for chrissakes.
I saw a photo of Marilyn taken in 1948 when she was 22, before she became a blonde. The resemblance between the Marilyn photo and wedding pictures of my aunt at age 21 in 1948 were uncanny. I later asked my cousin, her daughter, about her mother’s resemblance to 1948 Marilyn. My cousin replied that she had also seen the resemblance.
Like Marilyn, my aunt died in the 1960s in tragic circumstances, before turning 40. My cousin said that beauty was no guarantee of a happy life.
I saw a Marilyn movie in the 1990s—Gentlemen Prefer Blondes?. She had some talent as a comedienne. Not just a dumb blonde. But would Arthur Miller have married a dumb blonde? Married to perhaps the most prominent playwright and ballplayer of that generation—reminds me of Alma. (You can work Tom Lehrer into so many things. 🙂 )
Prominent authors such as Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, and Gloria Steinem, have written accounts of Marilyn’s life.
We don’t use the umlaut in English for chrissakes.
Mötley Crüe vehemently disagrees.
Just call ’em gobblers, especially Cenk and Piker
I’m not sure how to produce the umlaut in casual typing on my Mac, so it will be Turkiye at the most — although as I typed that, I see auto-correct has now been programmed to produce it with the umlaut. I overrode it.
Would appear that someone here has never been a stamp collector…(postage stamps, that is…).
The New Yorker magazine uses (or used to use) the umlaut in coöperate. Just a bit of pretentiousness. But I agree about Türkiye, which no one knows how to pronounce. I even had the same reaction when we were forced to switch from Peking to Beijing, Bombay to Mumbai, etc.
It also reminds me of the pretentiousness of those NPR talkers who are always careful roll their Rs when pronouncing someone’s Hispanic name. Or the American-born Sylvia Poggioli who liked to say her own name with a forced Italian accent.
Kate, to get my umlauts I just copied and pasted from the previous comments.
@Marisa:We don’t say or write Deutschland, Sverige, Hellas or even Italia or España. We don’t use the umlaut in English for chrissakes.
We don’t say “United Mexican States” or “Bharat” either. It’s very selective. Related is the phenomenon of talking heads using the native pronunciation of a city, for a while they all said “Firenze” instead of “Florence”, don’t know if they still do.
Also related the BCE and CE circumlocution for BC and AD. They’re dating from the same event, but the BCE/CE naming avoids saying what event that is. All other dating systems that I’m aware of refer to the defining event: the radiocarbon calendar dates from 1950, Japan dates from the reign of an Emperor, Rome dated from the founding of the city (AUC), the Eastern Roman Empire and the Hebrew calendar date from the beginning of the world (AM, though they don’t agree on when that was), even the Republic of San Marino dates from its legendary founding in 301. But for one dating system we have to be careful never to say what event the calendar dates from…
How does an advanced and civilized nation turn into ***a pack of hunting hounds directed against humans***? Sebastian Haffner, who came of age in Germany between the wars, seeks to answer that question in his important and well-written memoir.
We’ve gone many places and nobody had the slightest idea that was Marilyn Monroe.
So he was mentioning Marilyn’s disguises when he said that. But apparently, disguises weren’t really necessary.
I don’t recall where I read this, but it was a first person account of I think Arthur Miller’s sister who spent an afternoon out on the town in NYC with Marilyn. I believe Marilyn was wearing sunglasses and perhaps a scarf, and some not terribly frumpy outfit, and after a couple hours out amongst some people, the Miller lady asked Marilyn how it was that nobody is recognizing or bothering her.
Marilyn replied, “Oh, because I’m not putting on my Marilyn Monroe persona. Watch this!” She then proceeded to change her gate to a more sexy walk, and changed her voice and spoke a little louder, and within a couple minutes she had a small throng asking her for her autograph.
Big remaining SCOTUS decisions
Birthright citizenship
Counting ballots received after election day
Who can the president fire?
Limit challenges to immigration enforcement
Can states stop boys from participating in girls sports?
Gringo,
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a great movie, and one of the few my millennial daughters like from the classic Hollywood era. Marilyn had some real talent. Elton John’s Candle in the Wind is the best summary of her life.
Looks like it’s official. Bears are headed to Indiana.
A dierisis is not an umlaut and vice versa. So, no worries.
Niketas: but the BCE/CE naming avoids saying what event that is.
I always say those: Before the Christian Era / Christian Era
I recognize and really appreciate the role of Christianity in the world.
Too many take it for granted; being Jewish, I don’t.
An explanation of why President Trump’s approach to the Iran conflict is the correct one.
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION UNDERSTANDS THAT LAUNCHING A FULL SCALE NAVAL ASSAULT TO FORCIBLY REOPEN EVERY INCH OF STRAIT COULD TRIGGER A MUCH LARGER REGIONAL WAR AND PUT AMERICAN SAILORS AT RISK AND HAND IRAN EXACTLY THE CONFRONTATION IT WANTS AND I WOULD ARGUE ONE OF THE ADMINISTRATION’S SMARTEST MOVES OVER THE COURSE OF THIS CONFLICT HAS BEEN AVOIDING THE TRAP OF OVER-REACTION.
IRAN WOULD LOVE NOTHING MORE THAN TO PROVOKE A RESPONSE AND FRACTURE OUR INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT THAT SPIKES OIL PRICES AND CREATES POLITICAL DIVISION AT HOME. INSTEAD, WE’VE BEEN VERY METHODICAL AND KUDOS TO THE PRESIDENT AND THAT’S FRUSTRATING FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT IMMEDIATE ACTION BUT METHODICAL PRESSURE OFTEN PRODUCES BETTER OUTCOMES THAN EMOTIONAL DECISION-MAKING AND THE REALITY IS THAT RE-OPENING HORMUZ ISN’T JUST AS SIMPLE AS SENDING A CARRIER STRIKE GROUP TRUE THE STRAIT BUT A LOT OF PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND WE HAVE ALREADY IMPOSED A SIGNIFICANT COST ON IRAN.
I have the same birthday as Marilyn Monroe, though decades apart. I don’t know what that says about me astrologically, if anything. (I know someone else who was born on the same day and year as I was, and he couldn’t be more different from me.)
sdferr, thanks for the info about the dierisis dieresis! I learned something new today!
Whether “correct” or not, there’s an unexplained disjunction in the appearance of the policy, hence the derivation of the policy, I’ve noted before. The explanation on Kudlow’s show, while reasonable, is incomplete in its particulars I believe. Better therefore, see (or, hear) Gen. Keane’s account in this podcast I first heard this morning at Powerline (begins at 13:15): https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/06/gen-keane-on-the-iran-status-quo.php
The key element to my mind in the flip-flop from “Project Freedom” to abandoning that for “negotiations” is Gen. Keane’s citation of a Saudi ban on the use of Saudi airspace and basing to carry out “Project Freedom”, rendering it logistically impossible in practical terms. This answers my long running puzzlement. I think I’d heard about the denial of bases for this purpose, but not the denial of airspace.
Then we merely ask, why this Saudi position? A stab at an answer: Iran credibly threatened Saudi vital infrastructure; Saudi believed said infrastructure was (is) fundamentally unprotectable; Saudi couldn’t stand the thought of its loss or disruption, so shut down Trump’s move to force open the Strait. The negotiation path then appears as a fallback option, maybe not the best option, but the best available option.
Apologies for my misspelling there, Selfy, heh. diacritics rule!
Blue Öyster Cult rüles!
The Metal Umlaut is a real thing. It doesn’t indicate anything in terms of pronunciation or meaning beyond eliciting a playful shiver of Nordic horror.
Blue Öyster Cult is credited for the start of this venerable tradition.
Or as explained by Spinal Tap, who sometimes used an umlaut over the n:
_______________________________________
It’s like a pair of eyes. You’re looking at the umlaut, and it’s looking at you.
— David St. Hubbins, “This Is Spinal Tap” (1984)
I think my favorite David St Hubbins quote is, “I believe virtually everything I read.”
@sdferr:Gen. Keane’s account in this podcast
The “Institute for the Study of War”, founded way back in 2007 to stump for the Iraq War surge? I saw that today, no thanks, and it’s telling that’s where Scott Johnson wants us to get our opinions, Bill Kristol and Kimberly Kagan and the gang, never-Trumpers and Iraq War retreads and a bunch of kids right out of college.
I don’t like when legacy media misuses “experts” and I don’t like it when new media or bloggers do either.
At some point we were all supposed to say/write Inuit instead of Eskimo, and Sami instead of Lapland.
Here are some countries’ own names for themselves that have no resemblance to the English versions: Magyarorzsag, Suomi, and my favorite, Shqipëria, which means “land of the eagles.”
yeah that didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but many of the Saudi games rarely do, some chapters of their earlier history, have a certain game of thrones flavor to them
the irgc has struck several major targets like Ras Tanura and Jubail, and King Saud Airbase, but surprisingly they have held their powder dry,
they have a complex relation with the sharif clan which currently runs pakistan, well more like general Munir and the boys of aabpara have them as a front, they alternate with the zardaris (bhutto’s inlaws) to cut imran khan out of the picture,
in the early part of the engagement, the taliban emirate tangled with pakistan with some of those weapons they acquired from us, no doubt, but that was shut down fast
of course blue oyster cult, came to my attention with the heavy metal film and then about a decade later, with the opening to the stand, where it introed the fracas,
before the common era, seems to have been a 19th century coinage, not a new fangled one, but it does seem to obfuscate what is the delineation point, the reign of Augustus,
Well, I’m not endorsing the ISW, but merely the statement Keane (who I find generally trustworthy, albeit happily gung-ho for shootin’ war) made about the Saudi opt out. You’re free to dismiss as you please though. So, don’t push Kristol et al off on me, thanks.
I don’t have verification, so take the datum with a grain of salt. Still, something clearly seems to have caused the volte-face, could be this, could be something else similar to it.
Niketas Choniates: Thanks for the Scott Johnson reference. I was a once a regular reader and commenter at PLB, and still take a look at their blog each day, but they largely lost me after their much better stable of writers departed (or were driven off, likely by Scott Johnson). It would be much improved blog if he would depart.
that seems possible, but refusing basing rights doesn’t solve this problem, does it, in fact it encourages the iranians like the recent attacks on ali al salem and the international airport
again these are some of the known unknowns that most of the press are uninterested in, they would rather focus on marco rubio’s shoe size,
as you may have picked up i’m not terribly sanguine on Marshal Munir, he’s probably not as bad as Zia, but as useful as Musharaff
Niketas Choniates on June 5, 2026 at 12:12 pm:
“But for one dating system we have to be careful never to say what event the calendar dates from…”
For some reason your comment made me think of Schrodinger’s Cat: The event is only there, or not there, if/when you want to go looking for it.
Schrodinger’s Cat
Ahem. That would be Schrödinger’s Cat.
–The Umlaut Police
One funny thing is that there is no umlaut in the word ‘Umlaut’, neither in singular nor in plural, it seems. (I really wanted the plural to be ‘Umläute’ for this exercise, but it isn’t.)
Marisa, I agree, this business of changing the official name of Turkey to ‘Türkiye’ is disgusting. I can pronounce it fine, I just have no desire to do so. Turks do not get special privileges to colonize our language. I could have accepted ‘Turkia’, but not this. Why Trump and Rubio haven’t immediately switched it back I cannot comprehend. Talk about an easy win….
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The use of the spelling Türkiye which has emerged only in the last year or so is one of those little things about political correctness that really irks me. Who made the decision and how did it get propagated throughout our various media? What makes Turkey so special that we now are supposed to use that country’s own spelling in an English-speaking country? We don’t say or write Deutschland, Sverige, Hellas or even Italia or España. We don’t use the umlaut in English for chrissakes.
I saw a photo of Marilyn taken in 1948 when she was 22, before she became a blonde. The resemblance between the Marilyn photo and wedding pictures of my aunt at age 21 in 1948 were uncanny. I later asked my cousin, her daughter, about her mother’s resemblance to 1948 Marilyn. My cousin replied that she had also seen the resemblance.
Like Marilyn, my aunt died in the 1960s in tragic circumstances, before turning 40. My cousin said that beauty was no guarantee of a happy life.
I saw a Marilyn movie in the 1990s—Gentlemen Prefer Blondes?. She had some talent as a comedienne. Not just a dumb blonde. But would Arthur Miller have married a dumb blonde? Married to perhaps the most prominent playwright and ballplayer of that generation—reminds me of Alma. (You can work Tom Lehrer into so many things. 🙂 )
Prominent authors such as Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, and Gloria Steinem, have written accounts of Marilyn’s life.
We don’t use the umlaut in English for chrissakes.
Mötley Crüe vehemently disagrees.
Just call ’em gobblers, especially Cenk and Piker
I’m not sure how to produce the umlaut in casual typing on my Mac, so it will be Turkiye at the most — although as I typed that, I see auto-correct has now been programmed to produce it with the umlaut. I overrode it.
Would appear that someone here has never been a stamp collector…(postage stamps, that is…).
The New Yorker magazine uses (or used to use) the umlaut in coöperate. Just a bit of pretentiousness. But I agree about Türkiye, which no one knows how to pronounce. I even had the same reaction when we were forced to switch from Peking to Beijing, Bombay to Mumbai, etc.
It also reminds me of the pretentiousness of those NPR talkers who are always careful roll their Rs when pronouncing someone’s Hispanic name. Or the American-born Sylvia Poggioli who liked to say her own name with a forced Italian accent.
Kate, to get my umlauts I just copied and pasted from the previous comments.
@Marisa:We don’t say or write Deutschland, Sverige, Hellas or even Italia or España. We don’t use the umlaut in English for chrissakes.
We don’t say “United Mexican States” or “Bharat” either. It’s very selective. Related is the phenomenon of talking heads using the native pronunciation of a city, for a while they all said “Firenze” instead of “Florence”, don’t know if they still do.
Also related the BCE and CE circumlocution for BC and AD. They’re dating from the same event, but the BCE/CE naming avoids saying what event that is. All other dating systems that I’m aware of refer to the defining event: the radiocarbon calendar dates from 1950, Japan dates from the reign of an Emperor, Rome dated from the founding of the city (AUC), the Eastern Roman Empire and the Hebrew calendar date from the beginning of the world (AM, though they don’t agree on when that was), even the Republic of San Marino dates from its legendary founding in 301. But for one dating system we have to be careful never to say what event the calendar dates from…
How does an advanced and civilized nation turn into ***a pack of hunting hounds directed against humans***? Sebastian Haffner, who came of age in Germany between the wars, seeks to answer that question in his important and well-written memoir.
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/76918.html
We’ve gone many places and nobody had the slightest idea that was Marilyn Monroe.
So he was mentioning Marilyn’s disguises when he said that. But apparently, disguises weren’t really necessary.
I don’t recall where I read this, but it was a first person account of I think Arthur Miller’s sister who spent an afternoon out on the town in NYC with Marilyn. I believe Marilyn was wearing sunglasses and perhaps a scarf, and some not terribly frumpy outfit, and after a couple hours out amongst some people, the Miller lady asked Marilyn how it was that nobody is recognizing or bothering her.
Marilyn replied, “Oh, because I’m not putting on my Marilyn Monroe persona. Watch this!” She then proceeded to change her gate to a more sexy walk, and changed her voice and spoke a little louder, and within a couple minutes she had a small throng asking her for her autograph.
Big remaining SCOTUS decisions
Birthright citizenship
Counting ballots received after election day
Who can the president fire?
Limit challenges to immigration enforcement
Can states stop boys from participating in girls sports?
Gringo,
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a great movie, and one of the few my millennial daughters like from the classic Hollywood era. Marilyn had some real talent. Elton John’s Candle in the Wind is the best summary of her life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK1XlMsTgmM&list=RDlK1XlMsTgmM&start_radio=1
Looks like it’s official. Bears are headed to Indiana.
A dierisis is not an umlaut and vice versa. So, no worries.
Niketas: but the BCE/CE naming avoids saying what event that is.
I always say those: Before the Christian Era / Christian Era
I recognize and really appreciate the role of Christianity in the world.
Too many take it for granted; being Jewish, I don’t.
An explanation of why President Trump’s approach to the Iran conflict is the correct one.
‘FULL SCALE NAVAL ASSAULT’: This could trigger a MUCH larger war, warns drone expert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU_wnPxvZFU
I have the same birthday as Marilyn Monroe, though decades apart. I don’t know what that says about me astrologically, if anything. (I know someone else who was born on the same day and year as I was, and he couldn’t be more different from me.)
sdferr, thanks for the info about the
dierisisdieresis! I learned something new today!Whether “correct” or not, there’s an unexplained disjunction in the appearance of the policy, hence the derivation of the policy, I’ve noted before. The explanation on Kudlow’s show, while reasonable, is incomplete in its particulars I believe. Better therefore, see (or, hear) Gen. Keane’s account in this podcast I first heard this morning at Powerline (begins at 13:15): https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/06/gen-keane-on-the-iran-status-quo.php
The key element to my mind in the flip-flop from “Project Freedom” to abandoning that for “negotiations” is Gen. Keane’s citation of a Saudi ban on the use of Saudi airspace and basing to carry out “Project Freedom”, rendering it logistically impossible in practical terms. This answers my long running puzzlement. I think I’d heard about the denial of bases for this purpose, but not the denial of airspace.
Then we merely ask, why this Saudi position? A stab at an answer: Iran credibly threatened Saudi vital infrastructure; Saudi believed said infrastructure was (is) fundamentally unprotectable; Saudi couldn’t stand the thought of its loss or disruption, so shut down Trump’s move to force open the Strait. The negotiation path then appears as a fallback option, maybe not the best option, but the best available option.
Apologies for my misspelling there, Selfy, heh. diacritics rule!
Blue Öyster Cult rüles!
The Metal Umlaut is a real thing. It doesn’t indicate anything in terms of pronunciation or meaning beyond eliciting a playful shiver of Nordic horror.
Blue Öyster Cult is credited for the start of this venerable tradition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_umlaut
Or as explained by Spinal Tap, who sometimes used an umlaut over the n:
_______________________________________
It’s like a pair of eyes. You’re looking at the umlaut, and it’s looking at you.
— David St. Hubbins, “This Is Spinal Tap” (1984)
I think my favorite David St Hubbins quote is, “I believe virtually everything I read.”
@sdferr:Gen. Keane’s account in this podcast
The “Institute for the Study of War”, founded way back in 2007 to stump for the Iraq War surge? I saw that today, no thanks, and it’s telling that’s where Scott Johnson wants us to get our opinions, Bill Kristol and Kimberly Kagan and the gang, never-Trumpers and Iraq War retreads and a bunch of kids right out of college.
I don’t like when legacy media misuses “experts” and I don’t like it when new media or bloggers do either.
At some point we were all supposed to say/write Inuit instead of Eskimo, and Sami instead of Lapland.
Here are some countries’ own names for themselves that have no resemblance to the English versions: Magyarorzsag, Suomi, and my favorite, Shqipëria, which means “land of the eagles.”
yeah that didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but many of the Saudi games rarely do, some chapters of their earlier history, have a certain game of thrones flavor to them
the irgc has struck several major targets like Ras Tanura and Jubail, and King Saud Airbase, but surprisingly they have held their powder dry,
they have a complex relation with the sharif clan which currently runs pakistan, well more like general Munir and the boys of aabpara have them as a front, they alternate with the zardaris (bhutto’s inlaws) to cut imran khan out of the picture,
in the early part of the engagement, the taliban emirate tangled with pakistan with some of those weapons they acquired from us, no doubt, but that was shut down fast
of course blue oyster cult, came to my attention with the heavy metal film and then about a decade later, with the opening to the stand, where it introed the fracas,
before the common era, seems to have been a 19th century coinage, not a new fangled one, but it does seem to obfuscate what is the delineation point, the reign of Augustus,
Well, I’m not endorsing the ISW, but merely the statement Keane (who I find generally trustworthy, albeit happily gung-ho for shootin’ war) made about the Saudi opt out. You’re free to dismiss as you please though. So, don’t push Kristol et al off on me, thanks.
Miguel, just saw an Israeli analyst on TV7 Israel News who claims the drone attack on Barakah Nuclear reactor plant in UAE on May 17 was the trigger, due to (his claim) that power station supplies nearly all the desalination plants in the Gulf:
https://nypost.com/2026/05/17/world-news/drone-strikes-uae-nuclear-plant-as-trump-warns-iran-that-clock-is-ticking-to-make-deal/
I don’t have verification, so take the datum with a grain of salt. Still, something clearly seems to have caused the volte-face, could be this, could be something else similar to it.
Niketas Choniates: Thanks for the Scott Johnson reference. I was a once a regular reader and commenter at PLB, and still take a look at their blog each day, but they largely lost me after their much better stable of writers departed (or were driven off, likely by Scott Johnson). It would be much improved blog if he would depart.
that seems possible, but refusing basing rights doesn’t solve this problem, does it, in fact it encourages the iranians like the recent attacks on ali al salem and the international airport
again these are some of the known unknowns that most of the press are uninterested in, they would rather focus on marco rubio’s shoe size,
as you may have picked up i’m not terribly sanguine on Marshal Munir, he’s probably not as bad as Zia, but as useful as Musharaff
Niketas Choniates on June 5, 2026 at 12:12 pm:
“But for one dating system we have to be careful never to say what event the calendar dates from…”
For some reason your comment made me think of Schrodinger’s Cat: The event is only there, or not there, if/when you want to go looking for it.
Schrodinger’s Cat
Ahem. That would be Schrödinger’s Cat.
–The Umlaut Police
One funny thing is that there is no umlaut in the word ‘Umlaut’, neither in singular nor in plural, it seems. (I really wanted the plural to be ‘Umläute’ for this exercise, but it isn’t.)
Marisa, I agree, this business of changing the official name of Turkey to ‘Türkiye’ is disgusting. I can pronounce it fine, I just have no desire to do so. Turks do not get special privileges to colonize our language. I could have accepted ‘Turkia’, but not this. Why Trump and Rubio haven’t immediately switched it back I cannot comprehend. Talk about an easy win….