Them’s the Breaks
Including an extract from Boris Johnson’s recent resignation speech, a reader suggested that a post on the expression “them’s the […]
Shakespeare, Pronouns, and the New World Order
One of my favorite go-to news sources is the BBC Daily News. Reading an account of a shooting in Norway […]
Disavowed and Disabused
One day, not long ago, I read a story in the Guardian about a man who mistook an alligator for […]
Biased and Prejudiced Against
In a recent post about confusion between the words precedent and precedence, a reader commented on a similar confusion between […]
Legal Terms for Reading the News
As investigations, hearings, and trials flood the news media, a short glossary of legal terms may be useful to readers. […]
No More Grammatical Dummies
Common terms used in teaching the expletive use of it and there are “dummy it, ” “dummy there,” and “dummy […]
Esteem and Ratchet
Esteem An old-movie buff, I recently watched White Heat (1949) for the second time and wanted to know more about […]
Writing Fiction for US Adults
Writers of children’s fiction are constantly aware of the need to write with their readers’ reading level in mind. Writers […]
Same Phrase, Different Meanings
Recently I read two articles back-to-back in which the phrasal verb to make up was used with two entirely different […]
Precedent and Precedence Are Different
A writer recently complained that Amazon had rejected her book title. She said that the title should be approved because […]
Body Parts as Metaphor
Many of the nouns used to name body parts have corresponding verbs that describe the literal functions performed by the […]
“Disembodied” Does Not Mean That
In a very interesting BBC News article about ancient gardens, the writer describes an ancient relief that shows the vegetation-loving […]