Actress Jamie Lee Curtis recently turned to Twitter to express her outrage that Merriam-Webster dictionaries now include the word irregardless. “In case you thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse, Merriam-Webster just officially recognized irregardless as a word,” the actress tweeted, and her grammar fanatic fans howled: “I don’t want to live on this planet […]
In the second half of the 19th century, America was flooded with new immigrants, “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” These fresh arrivals, especially the millions fleeing the Irish potato famine, helped popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. A hundred years ago, in 1920, Anoka, Minnesota, celebrated the first city-wide Halloween with a costumed […]
There are plenty of museums that house visual art. Now words are finally getting their due. The 51,000-square foot interactive museum dedicated to words will open on October 22, in Washington, DC. Planet Word is designed to educate visitors about language, with exhibits focusing on the spoken, written and sung word. The museum will […]
Colors color our language — and that is not just a pigment of my imagination. Think of the words we use to describe how we feel. At various times we are green with envy, gray with exhaustion, red with embarrassment or white with rage. We can fall into a black mood, a purple passion […]
We Americans are caught in the grip of a feverish, frenetic, fervent, frantic and frenzied presidential campaign that demonstrates why in England people stand for election, but in the United States they run, especially in this year of electile dysfunction. It’s also a time that demonstrates that, although the classical societies of ancient Greece […]
DEAR RICHARD: I am old, a few months from 90. So I have time to wander and ponder things., both significant and silly. Recently a rule of spelling popped up in what’s left of my mind, namely “I before e, except after c.” Well, what about either and neither, which can be pronounced eyether […]
The Union-Tribune’s Festival of Books will transpire next Saturday, August 29, 10 am – 5 pm. This will be the U-T’s first virtual celebration of the written word. In tomorrow’s paper you’ll find a special section featuring participating authors, events and sponsors. When the Boston Red Sox won the first two games of a […]
DEAR RICHARD: Perhaps you can find a place in your column for this anonymous poetic definition of a pun. -Rick Miles, Sorrento Valley Two disparate strings of thought, Tied together with an acoustic knot. Thanks for your clever couplet, Rick. Here’s my favorite verse definition of a pun, also penned by the prolific Irish […]
Very early in our lives as language users we start taking great pleasure in repeating playful sounds. In the crib and romper room we babble ma-ma , da-d, and bye-bye. Soon we are intoning such ditties as eeny meeny miny moe, fee fi fo fum and hickory dickory dock, not because they make a […]
What do these words have in common: bash, clash, crash, dash, gash, gnash, hash, lash, mash, slash, smash, thrash and trash? “The words all rhyme,” you answer. Right. But can you spot what it is that the 13 words share in their content? Faces are bashed, gashed, slashed and smashed. Cars crash. Hopes are […]