I recently used the word disprefer in an email, and my spellchecker objected. That led me to a web search that convinced me that disprefer is (1) widely used in linguistics, (2) not listed in the OED, American Heritage, or Merriam-Webster online dictionaries, and (3) abhorred by some prescriptivists. This post is about to turn […]
Reader FW asked for some advice about a nanowrimo discussion of "Ands and buts", which started Nov. 3 with this question: So this is one that always get [sic] me. Grammatically speaking, or however it is known, can you use Ands and Buts at the beginning of sentences? And can you use it at the […]
Scott Timberg, "Maurice Sendak rewrote the rules with 'Wild Things' " (Los Angeles Times, October 11): In "Wild Things," a single sentence can take pages to unfold, its meaning changing slightly with each image. And this book with numerous wordless pages ends with a half-sentence and no accompanying image. Sendak works similarly to the directors of […]
The widely-watched PBS documentary The Civil War included this commentary by Shelby Foote: Before the war, it was said "the United States are." Grammatically, it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. And after the war, it was always "the United States is," as we say today without being […]
Yesterday, a reader sent a link to Kevin Krause, "Dallas County officials spar over 'black hole' comment", Dallas Morning News (Dallas City Hall blog), 7/7/2008: A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon. County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic […]