In the Theater section
of The International New York Times appears
an article published on 3 August 2016 with the headline: Barbra Streisand Sets
the Record Straight. What does ‘setting the record straight’ mean?
The Free Dictionary
defines the idiom ‘setting the record straight’ as ‘to put right a mistake or
misunderstanding; to make sure that an account etc. is correct’ or ‘to tell the
true facts that have not been accurately reported.’ Cambridge Dictionary
defines it as ‘to write or say something in order to make the true facts
known.’ Straight also means not curved, true, in line, frank, direct, and
honest – in a straight line (not round and round like a record). So what
misunderstanding is singer, film director and actor Barbra Streisand setting
straight?
The article’s author
interviews Streisand in her Malibu home, where she discusses her 35th album
Encore, her upcoming 2017 memoir, and the ‘persistent problems of being
Barbra.’ Halfway into the article, the author mentions Streisand’s name – ‘It’s
Streisand, as in ‘sand on the beach’ not ‘Strize-and’ a mispronunciation that
has plagued her at least since she first appeared on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ in
the early 1960s.’ The author adds that ‘the world is riddled with such
exasperating errors, and Ms. Streisand sees herself as burdened with the Sisyphean
task of uprooting them’ and ‘she has become more agonizingly aware than ever of
misrepresentations in the many, many accounts of her life that already exist.’
One misrepresentation
concerns the Broadway show ‘Wholesale’: ‘And for the record, she says, the idea
of performing her character’s big solo in an office chair on wheels was hers,
not the choreographer Herbert Ross’s.’ She discusses the reason why she has her
signature long fingernails (so she couldn’t work as a secretary), that she was
ambitious but put personal happiness above work, and the Hollywood film roles
she declined.
Interestingly the
author adds his own corrections from the earlier version of the same article –
two ‘misstatements’ (she met Judy Garland when she was barely into her 20s, not
barely out of her 20s; and the playwright of ‘Buyer and Cellar’ is Jonathan Tolins,
not Tolin), an incorrect reference to one of Streisand’s artworks (she does not
own a James McNeill Whistler painting), and a misstated year in the caption of
a picture (the image is not from 1994, it is from 1991).
The Scorecard for The International New
York Times headline is
100%. I like the reference to ‘record’ in the headline – a suggestion of the
black round vinyls that Streisand produced during her musical career, and to
her memoir being a record of her life. Not only does the article mention some
misunderstandings to set the record straight (but not early in the article),
the author actually writes the phrase ‘for the record’ at least twice. Both
Streisand and the author set the record straight on a number of
misunderstandings – 'the tiniest errors' – there’s no major outings here.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
Comments
Post a Comment