You Have to Hand it to Our Handy Dandy Language
June 17, 2017
All hands on deck! This coming Wednesday we’ll celebrate World Handshake Day, which spotlights one of the most common greetings between two people. Handshakes
Read “Lederer on Language” every other Saturday in the San Diego Union Tribune and on this site
All hands on deck! This coming Wednesday we’ll celebrate World Handshake Day, which spotlights one of the most common greetings between two people. Handshakes
Dear Richard Lederer: I bought a T-shirt from the Mill Dog Rescue, for which I foster. Emblazoned on the front is the statement “It was
The average person speaks at a rate of 120 to 180 words per minute. Professional newsreaders speak at around 150 wpm. Women speak an
May 29, two days from now, marks the centennial of the birth in Brookline, Mass., of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, our 35th president, at 43 and
Once upon a time, when the sky was made of canvas and the ground was made of sawdust, elephants in tutus danced on their
Throughout the 1920s, in an era of mah-jongg, goldfish swallowing and bicycle racing, solving crosswords became the biggest puzzle craze ever. In 1924, The New
It’s now been five years that I’ve had the surpassing privilege of sharing “Lederer on Language” with you in this space. My weekly adventure
Many words possess two kinds of meaning. The basic, direct meaning we call denotation. The implied, suggestive meanings are connotations. Connotations are what give a
Dear Richard Lederer: Would you please write a column about the use and misuse of the word fulsome? A recent story from the Washington Post,