DEAR RICHARD: In your recent column, you showcased 10 words that featured a huge number of different meanings. Another word with many uses is up. My family tried one day to think of all the different ways to use up, and we never gave up on our quest! –Kelly Sakoi, Rancho Peñasquitos What’s up with […]
Sometimes it seems that almost all Americans either play sports or watch them. Because competition occupies such a central place in American life and imagination, we hear a kind of democratic poetry in the sporty metaphors that make our English language so athletic. These phrases and expressions are vivid emblems of the games that we, […]
The major-league baseball All-Star game in Arlington, Texas, will be played on Tuesday July 16. So I’m starting today’s column with this letter: DEAR RICHARD: We were at the ball park recently when a fly ball was hit into the outfield. The scoreboard flashed “can of corn,” and my daughter asked what that meant. I […]
The Fourth of July is the most prominent all-American holiday — the birthday of our country — even though celebrating the Fourth didn’t become common until after 1815, and Independence Day wasn’t made a federal holiday until 1870. Do we ever celebrate! Families gather for parades, picnics, concerts, carnivals, and fireworks. That national outpouring of […]
Almost eight decades after the end of the Revolutionary War (1776-1783), there erupted another war (1861-1865). Mostly known today as the Civil War, the conflict seared our national consciousness and forever changed what it means to be an American. At dawn of July 1, 1863, the war had been unfolding for more than two years. […]
Dear Richard Lederer: Have you ever done a column on spoonerisms? My husband and I find them amusing and entertaining, yet we are a little amazed that so many of our friends haven’t heard of Rev. Spooner and his twists of the tongue. Perhaps you can enlighten them! Your raithful feeder! Joan Bryant, Coronado On […]
This past Saturday, May 4, marked the 150th (sesquicentennial) anniversary of the running of the Kentucky Derby. The premier event took place at Churchill Downs, in Louisville. In a heart-thumping finish, Mystik Dan won the race by a flared nostril. I’m full of horse power and feeling my oats — champing (not chomping) at the […]
DEAR RICHARD: The word buck has nine different definitions as presented in dictionary.com. This set me to wondering “Is there a definition of words with many definitions? What words in the English language are like this? Which has the most? How does this happen to begin with?” –Michael Stewart, Scripps Ranch If you need a […]
Little information about William Shakespeare’s personal life is available, but from municipal records we can deduce that he was born in the English village of Stratford-upon-Avon, in the county of Warwickshire, on April 23, 1564, and that after retiring to his home town around 1612, he died there on April 23, 1616. His life encompassed […]
A Sesquicentennial Celebration of poet Robert Frost’s birth is coming to San Diego on Wednesday, March 20, through Sunday, March 24 at our San Diego Central Library, 330 Park Blvd, downtown and at UCSD Park and Market in East Village. Dozens of America’s most acclaimed poets will attend, and so can you, free of […]