Quote of the Day (Calvin Trillin, on Why ‘All Thumbs’ Is Losing Meaning)

“I noticed the teenager, who was sitting across from me, texting with blinding speed. As his thumbs danced over the tiny screen, I realized that ‘all thumbs’ cannot much longer mean clumsy with one's hands. And I realized how much I’m going to miss it. It has always seemed to me a way of noting a deficit without being vicious about it — a description of the bumbling sitcom dad who tries to fiddle with a circuit breaker and plunges the entire house into darkness. But how can that man be labeled all thumbs if the teenager sitting across from me can use his thumbs on his smartphone fast enough to take dictation from a cattle auctioneer?”— Calvin Trillin, “Essay: Unplanned Obsolescence,” The New York Times Book Review, Dec. 31, 2017

(Photo of Calvin Trillin taken at a discussion at Dartmouth College, February 2011.)