More than two centuries ago, the most famous poet in Scotland was untimely ripped from this mortal coil. When Robert Burns died in 1796, he was but 37 years of age. The life of Robert Burns might have furnished the plot for a romantic novel. He was born on Jan. 25, 1759, in a clay […]
A newspaper headline blared ESCAPEE CAPTURED AFTER 10 DAYS ON THE LAMB. The message to be conveyed was not meant to be that the convict rode a sheep for 10 days but, rather, that he was on the lam, “a hurried flight from the law.” Here are some other hilariously misspelled headlines howlers: AUTHORITIES REGISTER […]
Now that you have freed prepositions to bravely be sentence endings, you might clarify Miss Thistlebottom’s split infinitive rule. — Pam Rider, East Village, San Diego Joining the preposition rule in the rogues’ gallery of usage enormities is the split infinitive. A split infinitive (“to better understand,” “to always disagree”) occurs when an adverb or […]
Dear Mr. Lederer: Recently, I heard President Obama say, “I don’t want to put the cart before the horse,” and I got to wondering how many outdated sayings like this are still in common use. “Don’t lock the barn after the horse runs away” and “he can’t hit the broad side of a barn” would […]
Thanksgiving is a delicious time of year to nibble on a spicy, meaty, juicy, honey of a topic that I know you’ll savor and relish. Feast your eyes on the veritable banquet of mushrooming food expressions that grace the table of our English language and season our tongue. As we chew the fat about the […]
After English, the most commonly spoken language in the continental United States is overwhelmingly Spanish. The only exceptions are French in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Louisiana, and German in North Dakota. If we remove both English and Spanish from the mix, a much more varied lineup consisting of 11 European, Asian, Native American and […]
Believe it or not, each year Sept. 24 is National Punctuation Day. Now you might think that celebrating those little and lowly dots, lines and curves is about as significant as celebrating a leaky faucet or scoring a perfect 100 on an IQ test. But correct punctuation is perhaps the most useful aid to making […]
Each week in this space, I strive to go the whole nine yards to entertain and enlighten you about our glorious, uproarious, courageous, contagious, stupendous, end-over-endous English language. But what is the source of the phrase the whole nine yards, which means “the whole shootin’ match,” “whole hog,” “the whole ball of wax”? The fact […]
Let us celebrate the limerick, a highly disciplined exercise in verse that is the only popular fixed poetic form indigenous to the English language. While other basic forms of poetry, such as the sonnet and ode, are borrowed from other countries, the limerick is an original English creation and the most quoted of all verse […]
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus has just rolled into our town to work its magic for a week. When that big show departs, it will leave behind a three-ring circus of words. Actually, when you say or write a three-ring circus, you are repeating yourself because circus echoes kirkos, the Greek word for […]