DEAR RICHARD: “Lead lives that integrate love and power, too.” I saw this headline in a recent U-T and wondered about the first two words. They have multiple pronunciations and meanings. I would love it if you would expound on that in your column. –Bill Griffiths, Rancho San Diego Note the unusual pattern of […]
On May 30, 1922, a century ago, a great crowd, including Abraham Lincoln’s only surviving son, 78-year-old Robert Todd Lincoln, gathered for the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. To celebrate this momentous centennial, let us reflect upon the making of the literary Lincoln. On February 12, 1809, a boy was born in a log cabin […]
For 10 years now, I’ve had the luminous privilege of sharing “Lederer on Language” with you, my verbivorous readers. I am unstintingly grateful to the Union-Tribune for expanding my life-long mission of teachership. The decade has whizzed by because, as one frog said to the other, “Time’s fun when you’re having flies!” This tenth […]
Fifty years ago, on May 10, 1972, our world-famous Safari Park opened its gates to the public. A half century later, 2 million people annually visit the park, which exhibits more than 3,500 animals representing more than 400 species. To celebrate this milestone, I offer some examples of bestial adjective-as-a-noun expressions and a game. […]
DEAR RICHARD: Have you ever explored the phenomenon I call “parasitic suffixes”? I can bring just two to mind: -athon and -aholic, taken, of course, from marathon and alcoholic. From the first we get telethon, shopathon, singathon, begathon, and so on. From the second suffix we derive word, such as chocoholic, shopaholic, and workaholic. Do […]
When we describe someone as smart as a whip, we are likely to make them feel pleased as punch. But what is so smart about a whip, and why should punch be pleased? Delving into the history of smart, we find that the word first meant “experiencing sharp pain.” Gradually the adjective took on […]
Having written more than 60 books and thousands of articles and columns, I, your fly-by-the-roof-of-the mouth, user-friendly language columnist, confess to be afflicted with graphomania. Derived from the Greek roots grapho, “writing,” and mania, “obsession,” graphomania is “an obsessive inclination to write.” I am a graphomaniac. I also harbor an obsessive inclination to collect […]
The other day, I got pulled over by the Grammar Police. They ticketed me for Reckless Punctuation, Faulty Subject-Verb Agreement, Splitting My Infinitives, Terminal Prepositions, Verb Tense Disorder, Misplacement of Modifiers, and Dangling My Participles in Public. On the side of the police car was emblazoned: Grammar Police To Serve and Correct I’m […]
Words and people have a lot in common. Like people, words are born, grow up, get married, have children and even die. And, like people, words come in families — big and beautiful families. A word family is a cluster of words that are related because they contain the same root. A root is […]
When you were a child learning to speak, you seized each word as if it were a shiny toy. This is how you learned your language, and this is how you can expand your current word stock. The best way to learn new words is through reading. Read for pleasure. Read for information. Read […]