For the enjoyment and edification of you, my logoleptic pun pals, I present my collection of placards and posters that have appeared around the world. Both literally and figuratively they are signs of our times, times in which we English users love to fiddle with words and to laugh at the loony tunes that such […]
A mnemonic device is a shortcut memory aid to storing facts fast and accurately. Mnemonic (the m is silent) is eponymously derived from Mnemosyne, the shadowy daughter of Uranus and Gaea, a wife of Zeus and mother of the nine muses. Mnemosyne caught Zeus’s eye when he decided that he wanted to record — so […]
A recent study concluded that workers’ English skills have been waning. Almost one in 10 adults of working age in the U.S. has limited proficiency in English, a number that has been steadily increasing for decades. These deficiencies curb workers’ job prospects and their ability to contribute to the nation’s economy. Immigrant workers and their […]
The Crimean War (1853-1856) pitted the combined might of Great Britain, France, Turkey and Sardinia against Russia. At stake was control of the holy places of Jerusalem and the strategic importance of the Crimean peninsula to the commerce and politics of the Black Sea. At the Battle of Balaclava, on Oct. 25, 1854, the […]
If you’re like me, you have, from time to time, encountered a situation that cried out for a snappy verbal comeback. But the comeback flashed in your mind a few minutes to a few hours too late and you could only sigh wistfully, “I wish I had thought of that line then.” There’s actually a […]
Which dog has the upper paw?: a. A clever dog knows its master. b. A clever dog knows it’s master. The answer is the dog in the second sentence because that dog knows that it is master. To discover how a slight difference in wording can make a vast difference in meaning, examine each pair […]
A few weeks ago, I featured the clerihew, a form of nonsense verse invented 125 years ago by Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956). The clerihew (usually lowercased) is a whimsical, pseudo-biographical quatrain (four lines) rhymed (often outrageously) as two couplets with short, pithy lines of uneven length and meter. The name of the individual who is […]
On this, our nation’s birthday, I hope you’ll enjoy this fractured chronicle of American history composed entirely of certified, genuine, authentic, unretouched student fabrications. Read carefully, and you will learn a lot. Christopher Columbus discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic Ocean on the Nina, the Pinta Colada and the Santa Fe. Columbus knelt, thanked […]
Three weeks ago, California-connected American Pharoah outraced the field and the spellchecker to become the first horse in 37 years to capture the Triple Crown. His epic feats of legerdemain have inspired me to maintain my equine-imity by exploring how horses figure prominently in the figures of speech that canter – neigh, gallop! – through […]
Late in the 19th century, a daydreaming British preppie named Edmund Clerihew Bentley gave the world a new form of nonsense verse. Author of the story “Trent’s Last Case,” Bentley (1875-1956) is best remembered as the inventor of the clerihew (his mother’s maiden name and his middle name). Bentley’s son, Nicholas, wrote, “I think it […]