This month, presidential candidate Donald Trump delivered a morning convocation at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. During his address to a large evangelical audience, Trump said, “I hear this is a major theme right here. . . . Two Corinthians 3:17. That’s the whole ballgame.” Trump’s saying “two Corinthians” instead of the conventional “second Corinthians” […]
Riddler Reacher at your service. That’s an anagramof my real identity, Richard Lederer, a reshuffling of all the letters in my first and last name. What’s in a president’s name? Plenty, when you start anagramming the monikers of our 20th- and 21st-century chief executives (using every letter, no more, no fewer). Some presidents work better […]
In its annual vote on January 8, the American Dialect Society chose they used as a gender-neutral singular pronoun as its 2015 Word of the Year. More than 300 linguists, lexicographers and grammarians honored they for its burgeoning use as a pronoun to refer to a single person, often as a conscious choice by a […]
Welcome to a yearlong centennial celebration of the San Diego Zoo, most universally voted the best zoo in the US of A. Starting with animals left over from the 1915-1916 Panama-California Exposition, the dream of a zoo in San Diego blossomed into a reality. As Henry David Thoreau wrote in “Walden,” “If you have built […]
I am a proud resident of Scripps Ranch, and one of the men’s clubs in our community is named The Old Pros. The problem is that, more often than not, on T-shirts and other print media, the name of the club appears as “Old Pro’s.” Well, why not? For many, if there’s an s at […]
This is the time of year when teachers send parents evaluations of their children’s academic achievements and shortcomings. One teacher actually wrote, “Here is your child’s progress report. Sign the verification form at the top where indicated and return to school with your child in the envelope.” In truth, teachers exhibit a remarkable ability to […]
Eight days ago, Peter Gold, a 25-year-old medical student at Tulane University in New Orleans, stopped his car when he saw a man forcibly dragging a woman to another car. When Gold got out of his automobile and tried to help the victim, the criminal shot him in the stomach. The media immediately dubbed Gold, […]
On the fourth of July, 1862, a young Oxford don dressed in white flannels and straw boater took the day off to go a-rowing and go on a picnic with a Rev. Robinson Duckworth and three small girls. The don was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who was then, and for more than 25 years would remain, […]
November is National Writing Month, so today I muse about how some writers write. Ernest Hemingway’s first rule for writers was to apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. But not all authors are able to survive with such a simple approach. Francis Bacon knelt each day before creating his […]
Tomorrow millions will begin watching the finals of the 2015 World Series of Poker. As luck would have it, you’re reading a column brought to you by the most successful breeder of world-class poker professionals in history. My son, Howard “The Professor” Lederer, and daughter, Annie Duke, have won $11.5 million in poker championships. I’m […]