19 March—Latest on Region 20’s new superintendent: Not much. The board is sworn to secrecy, evidently by the headhunting agency, until the envelope is opened at tomorrow night’s ceremony. But The Monitor’s Grand Inquisitor was able to ascertain—through waterboarding—that the new super is of the male persuasion, currently unconnected to the four towns, and fiscally conservative. Hope springs eternal. And now let us pray.

Harking back to Elon Musk hysterically heiling his Hitler from behind the presidential seal, then, look at Elon’s mouth. He insists he’s telling his audience, “My heart goes out to you.” But he appears to be engaged in something completely different, specifically a labiodental articulation. It’s something we all do. Well, all of us who have maxillary (upper) teeth and inferior (lower) lips, anyway. Elon’s upper teeth, concealed by this upper (superior) lip (as is usual), are touching his lower lip for the labiodental articulation. And he’s probably articulating a speech sound that doesn’t jibe with any part of “My heart goes out to you.”

In phonetics, the science of word sounds, a sound—in this case a consonant—articulated by a speaker using the lower lip and the upper teeth is called a labiodental fricative. (Labiodental meaning lip and teeth, fricative meaning produced by friction of breath.)

While there are several fricative sounds, the only labiodental sounds used in English are in fact fricatives and they may be voiced or unvoiced. A voiced sound is produced with the vocal folds (commonly called vocal cords) vibrating, which creates a buzzing sound when air passes through them. Voiceless sounds, on the other hand, don’t involve vocal fold vibration.

The voiced labiodental fricative is the sound of V. The unvoiced labiodental fricative is the sound of F. If Elon were actually saying what he said he was saying, we’d see his lips together in a bilabial M or rounded bilabial O or U. We wouldn’t notice the other sounds of “My heart goes out to you” being articulated because they’d be made intraorally—within the mouth.

Given the possibility of a V or an F, then, what do you think Elon Musk was actually saying or at least mouthing to himself as he was hysterically heiling his Hitler from behind the presidential seal?

Before dismissing Elon Musk, why are people picking on Tesla cars? Elon’s a corrupt creep, to be sure, but the cars are innocent machines. Like Trump and Musk flunkies, they do only what they’re told.

Tesla cars have their own problems. It’s a crying shame that Teslas, which have so much to recommend them, are among the most unreliable cars currently on the market—because of really crummy quality control (if any) as well as advanced technology, both of which are under Elon Musk’s ultimate control, so the buck stops with him.

Remember when Consumer Reports gave the Tesla Model S the magazine’s first and only 100 absolute rave rating? And shortly thereafter CR couldn’t recommend it because it turned out to be so unreliable?

And Teslas, which once boasted impressive resale value, have been doing especially poorly on the used car market since Musk and Trump became a rogue diarchy. Pity . . .