Falling on October 31, Halloween is the year’s spookiest holiday. On that day we carve faces in pumpkins, dress in horrible costumes and go out trick or treating. The traditions associated with modern-day Halloween find their roots in ancient Ireland, in the fifth century B.C. October 31 signaled the end of the Celtic year and […]
Dear Richard Lederer: In a recent U-T Business section, the word genericide — what an interesting word! — popped up in conjunction with the ongoing legal battle between Comic Con and an outfit in SLC using the same name. Before coming to San Diego, I lived a few miles from the Xerox Corporation headquarters in […]
The Elizabethan age was the age of the sonnet, a compact fixed verse form written in iambic pentameter, a metrical foot that captures the beating of the human heart — da DA, da DA — and consists of three quatrains (four-line clusters) and a couplet (two lines). It was in the Elizabethan Age that […]
Dear Richard Lederer: Why doesn’t the U.S. government do something proactively for once? Millions of people struggle to learn English. Why doesn’t the government commission a team of American English experts to recommend changes to the language to make it easier to understand, learn, teach and promulgate? For starters, all words that rhyme, like […]
Next weekend the MCAS Miramar Air Show will, rain or shine, fill the skies in my part of our city. The spectacle will feature aerial excitement from beginning to end, including daily Blue Angels performances. This year’s theme is A Salute to Vietnam Veterans. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but two Wrights did […]
The First Annual (of many, I suspect) San Diego Festival of Books, held two weeks ago at Liberty Station in Point Loma, was a prodigious success. Almost 10,000 bibliophiles (“book lovers”) made a joyful noise unto the printed page at the most jubilant event in praise of books ever held in San Diego. And […]
Many of us attend conferences, parties and other gatherings where we are asked to wear name tags that say, “Hello, I’m _____.” Here’s a punderful game that takes those badges to the limit. The object is to match a real first name with a real job to spark a punny connection, as in “My […]
Dear Richard Lederer: I was at a conference getting myself orientated about preventative maintenance — or should that be “oriented about preventive maintenance”? Could you interpretate the correct form of these words? –Spence Malden In many horror films, malignant monsters, from giant insects to blobs of glop, writhe about. Unfortunately, such grotesque mutations are […]
In just two days, and for the first time in 99 years, the shadow of a total solar eclipse will arc across the United States from coast to coast. So today is a bright occasion to gaze upward at the heavenly words that illuminate our language. Have you ever been curious about why the […]
One afternoon a fox was wending his way through the forest when he spotted a bunch of grapes hanging from a lofty branch. “Just the thing to quench my thirst,” said he. Taking a few steps back, the fox leapt up and just missed the hanging grapes. After springing and missing three times, the fox […]