The Old Globe Theatre began life here 80 years ago, during the 1935 California Pacific International Exhibition. Commemorating that milestone — and honoring Craig Noel, the visionary who built that castle in the air and then implacably laid foundations underneath — let’s celebrate the showbiz words and expressions that enliven our language. Because entertainment is […]
It’s been a hundred years since the Panama-California Exposition drew 3 million visitors to a town that counted only 45,000 residents. As we celebrate the centennial of Balboa Park, the jewel in the crown of our shining city, let us realize that the English romantic poet John Keats got it all wrong. To conclude his […]
Dear Mr. Lederer: I posted on Facebook that a pet peeve of mine is adults who use the word ain’t. I was very surprised to be informed that ain’t has been accepted as a legitimate word. Please shed light on this. I sign off totally insecure as I failed diagramming a sentence in English class! […]
Last week, I wrote about malapropisms, the misuse of words in an illiterate but humorous manner. Today I feature a special kind of malapropism. An Austin, Texas, emergency medical technician answered a call at the home of an elderly woman whose sister had collapsed. As they were placing her into the ambulance, the lady […]
Dear Mr. Lederer, You’re hilarious. Thanks so much for entertaining and educating us. Speaking of hilarious, one of my favorite characters is Mrs. Malaprop. Surely she’s one of yours, too. — Valerie Swink, Encinitas When people misuse words in an illiterate but humorous manner, we call the result a malapropism. The word echoes the […]
This column concludes my third year of writing “Lederer on Language” for the U-T. What I’ve loved most about the adventure has been its humanity, my connection with y’all, my verbivorous readers. Samuel Johnson, who gave us the first great dictionary of the English language, wrote, “I am not yet so lost in lexicography, […]
He was, according to his biographer James Boswell, a huge man. When he was barely out of infancy, he contracted scrofula, a disease that severely impaired his eyesight and left his face horribly disfigured. He attended Oxford University but, because of family finances, did not take a degree. For a while he operated a private […]
Dear Mr. Lederer: I have wondered what your take is on the somewhat recent proliferation of people starting sentences with, “So, …” It annoys me mildly, though I’m unsure why. Maybe it sounds to me like they think we have all been awaiting them to continue on with brilliant commentary as they had been […]
Easter, which commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his crucifixion, was the earliest feast day decreed by the ancient Christian church. Many Christians consider the season leading up to Easter to be the holiest time of the year in their faith. This seems like a good time, then, to think […]
Which speaker is more likely to be a magician?: a. She embellished her talk with a number of allusions. b. She embellished her talk with a number of illusions. The answer is b. Allusions are references; illusions are deceptive images. The abundance of words that our English language yields many twins that are similar in […]