The Sacramento Bee from Sacramento, California • 18

4 r4 EINEStEMMEEMMittin EIMIIIEMMMONMME Monday July I 1991 The Sacramento Bee SCIENIE 6 a Mt I All 41 I I Verbatim's got the word on words good or bad 101 1101 1111 tt fret 1111i 4" 39 ft BOB WISEHART TV Columnist 01W trels "I try to stay on top of things and show my own enthusiasm for what's going on and at the same time get across that this is fun and games not life and death" Larry Merchant -ie "I try to stay on 111 atorP top of things and how ONVII senthusiaYsm for 0 what's going on and at the same atime get across 0 that this is fun -ir'y ir and games not life and death" lvd di I E4g0 rd Larry Merchant 2 tisti I 1 Ai' It Rtl fl Irtr0 filtht have always maintained" declared Larry Merchant "that tennis is the gentleman's form of boxing" Except perhaps that in tennis you will not find Mike Tyson trying to rearrange Boris Becker's face And the thought of George Foreman bounding around the greensward in full tennis regalia with a racket in one hand and a cheeseburger in the other only leads to giggles But if anyone can see the parallel assuming there is one it's Merchant the trenchant HBO Sports analyst who is simply one of the best there is at what he does A sports columnist with the Philadelphia Daily News and New York Post before he jumped to HBO in 1978 Merchant offers insights wrapped in well-turned phrases If he does anything better than set the scene before a big fight or a big match it's to put it in perspective when it's over As usual this time of year Merchant is at Wimbledon for the world's biggest tennis tournament a trip that's so much alert 111O 111b By Colin MeEnroe Hartford Courant e' ET'S SAY YOU wake up one morning thinking about the word Kind of redundant isn't it? Do we ever need to say Well let's see: "Ode on Grecian Urn" "To Kill Mockingbird" "I should have been pair of ragged claws Well hardly ever Anyway is redundancy really so bad? Maybe it's good Maybe it's sort of a comfortable well-worn pillow for the brain so that the brain is not constantly jolted with stark flashes of terse new information Yeah that's the ticket Maybe it's good (Did we already say that?) If you're warming to this subject you 'should consider ponying up $1650 for a subscription to Verbatim a quarterly periodical (talk about redundant) for lovers of words Laurence Urdang the 2000-pound gorilla of logophilia and the editor of more than 125 dictionaries founded Verbatim in 1974 These days the handlebar-mustachioed sexagenarian lexicographer and linguist is the whole staff (Subscriptions and printing are contracted out of his residence in Old Lyme Conn) Verbatim's masthead proclaims it "The Language Quarterly" and Urdang says its readers tend to be "real people" as opposed to linguists who he says "are categorically the dullest people on the face of the Earth" Your typical real person then would be Steve Bonner of Germantown Md a computer programmer whose interest in words and language is strictly an avocation It was Bonner who started thinking about redundancy and wound up writing "Natural Language and Redundancy" the winter 1991 Verbatim cover story from which some of the opening thoughts of this article were drawn Bonner likes Verbatim because "it's read- able It deals with some interesting issues without getting bogged down" Getting bogged down says Urdang is tV ir11 reef' Arf lit rsre ti it (Si 11 I "41 I I Be it tennis or boxing HBO's Larry Merchant puts a spin on a match that no one can touch "via400 "1 ::4::: l': ''''''1''''''t 2 4' l'' 7r''' i''4 4 l' '1''''' ''l 'i7i' 1 1 i'1' 0 --i7i'-'-'! j' i :1 it m03 i 11iiiio i' See VERBATIM page B8 KOVR news chief resigns By Dan Vierria Bee TV Writer I de 0 VW HANNEL 13 (KOVR) news director Mike Ferring said he has decided to leave the station before the month is up During a weekend telephone conversation Ferring said he doesn't have another job lified up but would like to remain in North-On California and work in the television 0 I tr" a 411A -i 4i 4fall a part of his fixed routine that he can't remember if it's his "sixth or seventh" time Working with Jim Lamp ley Billie Jean King and Arthur Ashe Merchant is the essayist of the HBO contingent that covers the two-week tournament with more than 30 hours of air time It can be seen on HBO tonight through Friday from 5 to 8 pm Between gripes about the lousy English weather "At Wimbledon they don't have rain breaks" he grumbled "they have play breaks" Merchant talked about how his old print habits still serve him well "I'm still a columnist" he said voice punching through 8000 miles of static from the HBO production facility at Wimbledon "That's what I do really partnews feature and part commentary I try to stay on top of things and show my own enthusiasm for what's going on and at the same time get across that this is fun and games not life and death" The latter can be troublesome Athletes often regard what they do as the most important undertaking in the history of Planet Earth and Merchant's blithe perspective is sometimes not appreciated One of the reasons why Mike Tyson broke off his long and spectacularly lucrative relationship with HBO is that mu I 411 A I- IriCW it I Larry Merchant went from newspapers to televi sion in 1978 Since then he's offered his well-turned phrases to set the tone before a fight or a tennis match but even more to put the events into perspective when they're over stein a former writer for the National and the Washington Post sneered that tennis players' are "the least accessible athletes I've ever dealt with" Merchant agrees even as he understands why they are the way they are "A lot of these players were nurtured in a hot-house environment where their whole world became this small rectangle" he said "They're successful at a very young age and it's not always easy to deal with it You try to probe beyond skin deep when there may not be anything but skin deep Others have been interviewed so often that when they open their mouth it's as if they're just rolling the tape" Asked about his favorites in terms iWhen I came 'in here it was of a 'two-year job the kind of job I'm good going in and fixing things Mike Ferring I came in here it was kind of a two-year job the kind of job I'm good going in and fixing things" Mike Ferring he found Merchant irritating "Negative" was Tyson's word for it the one that can be printed Merchant's response was a verbal shrug shrouded in sarcasm: "Oh I manage to carry on somehow despite what Mike Tyson thinks" Returning to his tennis-boxing comparison Merchant explained: "I've always believed that boxers and tennis players were the most accountable athletes They have no excuses They can't say 'Well the defensive line didn't pressure the passer and that's why I got burned on that touchdown pass' It's a matter of poise and regaining your poise if you lose it There's no place to hide" In his new book "Hard Courts" about life on the pro tennis tour John Fein NoVO Ple 4IIl 1-' "It was my choice to leave but I don't think anybody at cor- porate head- quarters will shed many tears" Ferring said "It's time to take the big step" Ferring said he planned to meet today with station general manager Mi'at chael Horne who had been out of the country Ferring who previously had discussed leaving with Florile said there was no chance he W-o-u-id remain as news director "When I came in here it was kind of a two-year job the kind of job I'm good at going in and fixing things" Ferring said "Now the news department is operational a different kind of animal and it's obvious I'm not going anywhere with Anchor Media" rerring who has been at the station since April 1989 transformed Channel 13's then-veteran news staff to one of youth and fresh faceS He hired Jennifer Whitney to co-anchor the weeknight newscasts with Dan Gray hired Stephanie Riggs and Paul Joncicb and teamed them for weekend newscasts and had recently just hired David James as sports director See WISEHART page RI 1 1 tart 11011 10 'Love's' labors ti Shakespeare troupe realizes its 'Dream' prove rewarding Mill By Alfred Kay Bee Arts Critic Bee Arts Critic Festival opens in permanent home L--11 By Peter Haugen Bee Theater Critic THEATER REVIEW 00' NO let It 04' 010s k's 10 9 1 '1 A ''4' A 0 it 4 1440000 1 '''4 t) 10 'Ir( ailfr Watt ITIN ILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was only 24 yws old when he wrote "Love's Labour's And though "Hamlet" was more than a a cade away the writer already possessed wisdom anda wit and knew a great deal about love both lost ang found In choosing this early sample of the THEATER REVIEW Elizabethan poet's Elizabethan poet's See FUMING page 11 50 4 INSiDE 0 RINDA Friday night was going to be a triumph anyway if the weather would just hold off Even if the show "A Midsummer Night's Dreamnhadn't turned out to be quite so magically realized the fact that it was opening that 500-odd people had gathered in the unseasonably sopping mist shrouding the oaks and eucalyptus of the Siesta Valley was a victory The mood bubbled through the chilly crowd effervescing at the edges where artistically black-clothed young men and women floated Wavering from nervous grimace to loopy grin they reached to squeeze each others' hands "It's happening" they crowed "It's finally happening!" What the theater folk were exulting in was the California Shakespeare Festival a reborn See 'DREAM' page E'8 little less than royal B9 "Once Upon a Mattress" doesn't do justice to the fairy tale says Bee Arts critic Robert A Masullo handiwork for pro- duction the Fair Oaks Theatre Festival representsIbg writer at that encouraging time when the creative liveliness of youth and the security of an emerging talent came together Even so an audience has a few problems to reiolyc before accepting "Love's Labour's Lost" as a classic See 'LOVE'S' page B8 Comics 012 Lura Do las Is enamoured of Dan Hiatt In "A Midsummer Night's Dream" B10 Television -I -4'.