Let us celebrate the limerick, a highly disciplined exercise in verse that is the only popular fixed poetic form indigenous to the English language. While other basic forms of poetry, such as the sonnet and ode, are borrowed from other countries, the limerick is an original English creation and the most quoted of all verse […]
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus has just rolled into our town to work its magic for a week. When that big show departs, it will leave behind a three-ring circus of words. Actually, when you say or write a three-ring circus, you are repeating yourself because circus echoes kirkos, the Greek word for […]
Because language is naturally playful, we human beings love to make jokes about words. Here, in order of length, are a dozen of my favorite verbal tour de farces: • Bad spellers of the world, untie! • Every time you make a typo, the errorists win. • The only place where success comes before work […]
The Irish are known not only for St. Patrick’s Day (coming up March 17), but also for the lyricism and sentiments of their toasts, often called “blessings.” Across the Irish countryside and throughout Irish folklore, countless toasts and blessings sing of life and hope. On the breastplate of St. Patrick himself appears: “May you be […]