Because we English speakers seem to have our heads screwed on backwards, we constantly misperceive our bodies, often saying just the opposite of what we mean. For example, I keep seeing signs on low doorways that warn Watch Your Head, but I haven’t figured out how to follow that instruction. How does one actually […]
Two weeks ago. I paid tribute to the teachers who change our lives one day, one lesson and one inspiring word at a time. I invited readers to write me about the teachers who most deeply and enduringly influenced the course of their lives. From the billowy mailbag of your responses, here are three: […]
Tomorrow marks the seventh anniversary of my sharing my words about words in this space with you, my wordstruck readers. You’re the cream in my coffee, the syrup on my pancakes, the cherry on my sundae and the jewels in the crown of my mission of teachership. Something magic resides in the number seven. […]
One of my favorite newspaper corrections reads: “It was incorrectly reported last Friday that today is T-shirt Appreciation Week. It is actually Teacher Appreciation Week.” Well, Teacher Appreciation Week begins tomorrow and extends to Saturday, May 11. Teachers change the world one child at a time, yet they are sorely unappreciated. In 1985, the […]
DEAR RICHARD LEDERER: I read your announcement about your forthcoming visit to our local library here in La Mesa. You refer to “the La Mesa” library. Is that correct since La is the Spanish definite feminine article for the? –Nora Curran, La Mesa A thousand thanks, Nora, for your cogent question, an indication that […]
Happy Earth Day to all of you this Monday, April 22. In 1970, the first Earth Day began a “grassroots” effort to recognize each year the fragility of the imperiled planet we are all riding. We were once a nation of farmers, but by the turn of the 20th century most of us had moved […]
This past February 8, Walter Munk, arguably the world’s greatest oceanographer, shuffled off his mortal coil at the age of 101 and made his last dive into what William Shakespeare called the “unpathed waters.” Dr, Munk was at the epicenter of the Golden Age of exploration and research, which transformed the Scripps Institute of Oceanography […]
Tomorrow kicks off National Library Week, with the theme “Libraries = Strong Communities.” Decades ago, when I was teaching and writing in New Hampshire, I published a column tracing the history of American libraries. In response, Gertrude King Ramstrom, of Nashua, NH, sent me her luminous memories of her childhood adventures in her village […]
The English language abounds with alliteration — series of sequential syllables starting with the same sound. To prove my point and put my money where my mouth is, I offer the cream of the crop — a treasure trove of 70 tried-and-true, bread-and butter, bigger-and-better, bright-eyed- and-bushy-tailed, back-to-basics, larger-than-life, clear-cut, proof positive (not haphazard, […]
From alpha to omega, You can bet the alphabet, Like a painting done by Degas, Will leap and pirouette. See dancing words, entrancing words, Sterling words unfurling. Watch prancing words, enhancing words, Whirling, twirling, swirling. The word alphabet is a joining of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta. The […]