[This is a guest post by Peter T. Daniels, to follow part 1 (7/1/24)] That, then, is my account of the origin of writing. It might be supposed that my next topic must be the origin of the alphabet. But it is not; for me, the origin of the alphabet is accidental and practically inevitable, […]
Samuel Bray, "Cruel AND Unusual?", Reason 4/21/2024: On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear argument in an Eighth Amendment case, City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson. One thing I will be watching for is whether the justices in their questions treat "cruel and unusual" as two separate requirements, or as one. The Eighth Amendment […]
In recent weeks, the odd expression "kǒudài zuì 口袋罪" (lit., "pocket / bag crime"} has become a hot topic). It's a vague, catch-all term without any juridical / official standing, yet it has left many people troubled over its implications. To understand why people are unsettled over such a seemingly zany, innocuous term, we will […]
Matt Wilstein, "Kathy Griffin Calls CNN’s Jeff Zucker a ‘Pussy’ for Caving to Trump", Daily Beast 7/2/2019 [emphasis added]: Griffin tells ‘The Last Laugh’ podcast that the CNN president tried to limit her to one Trump joke per hour during 2016’s New Year’s Eve special before firing her the next year. […] They had such […]
Yesterday while stuck in traffic I listened to Michael Lewis being interviewed about his new book "The Fifth Risk", and I passed the time thinking about other titles of the form Definite Article + Ordinal Number + Noun. There are many of these, but there are clear stand-outs for numbers 1, 2, 3, and 7: […]
Last week the Washington Post published an op-ed by Michael Anton arguing that the United States should do away with birthright citizenship—the principle that anyone born in the United States is a U.S. citizen, even if their parents are foreign-born noncitizens. The op-ed has attracted a lot of attention from people on both the left […]
The most pervasive metaphor in English may be the use of "higher" to mean "better" (e.g., stronger or more moral), which has spawned endless figures of speech. It's hard to avoid those metaphorical phrases, although that might be wise in situations in which "higher" also has a relevant physical meaning. The New York Times on Saturday […]
Ken Adams, "Courtesy of the High Court of England and Wales, A Reminder that Ambiguity Is Best Left to Experts", Adams on Contract Drafting 12/11/2016: Here’s the language at issue (emphasis added): Without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 3 if all of the Conditions have not been discharged in accordance with this Schedule […]
Richard Hershberger, who usually writes about baseball, has a recent post at Ordinary Times about "Modern English Grammar": My post today is uncharacteristically devoid of baseball content. It is about grammar, one of my many unremunerative interests. Specifically it is about modern English grammar. I don’t mean by this (except incidentally) the grammar of modern […]
Nicholas Wade never met a genetic just-so story that he didn't like. For a partial survey, see "The hunt for the Hat Gene", 11/15/2009, where I observed that he pivots smoothly from mere over-interpretation to complete fabrication: Nicholas Wade is an inveterate gene-for-X enthusiast — he's got 68 stories in the NYT index with "gene" in the headline — and […]
… at least judging by the readers' comments on Stephanie Banchero, "Students Fall Flat in Vocabulary Test", Wall Street Journal 12/6/2012. Banchero's article seriously misunderstands and misrepresents an already-misleading account of American schoolchildrens' knowledge of vocabulary — see "Journalist Falls Flat in Comprehension Test", 12/8/2012, for details. But the 127 readers' comments suggest that the paper […]
Alex Koppelman, "The Unheralded", The New Yorker 9/12/2012: For the past three years, Brendon Ayanbadejo, a backup linebacker and standout special-teams player for the [Baltimore] Ravens, has been advocating for same-sex marriage—writing about it, talking about it, appearing as one of the stars of a video campaign launched by backers of a measure to legalize […]
In the latest issue of The New Yorker, Jane Mayer has a profile of Bryan Fischer ("BULLY PULPIT: An evangelist talk-show host’s campaign to control the Republican Party", The New Yorker, 6/18/2012), which starts this way: Tupelo, Mississippi, is best known as the birthplace of Elvis Presley, and his childhood home remains the town’s top […]