For months, years and long periods like centuries, use in.

For days and dates, use on.

For precise times use at.
Meet me at 8 p.m.
The children played at recess.

Some common expressions vary the pattern:

in the morning, but on Monday morning
in the mornings, but on Wednesday mornings
in the afternoon but on Sunday afternoon

NOTE: Although we say in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening, we say at night. Ex. Milk is delivered in the morning. The stars come out at night. BUT We heard a noise in the night.

Some time expressions do not require a preposition:
I went to Sicily last May.
He’s giving a speech next Friday.
My children visit every Thanksgiving.
What are you doing this afternoon?

Talking about the weekend admits of variation:

Do you work weekends?
Do you work on the weekend? (American usage)
Do you work at the weekend? (British usage)

BBC Learning English on, in and at with time expressions.

The phrase is, of course, from Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (1776). It also occurs in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (1863).

It’s a lovely phrase and I can understand why we like to use it.

Lately, however, I’ve been noticing statements like these:

Not all charity products are created equally.

Not all online content is created equally.

. . . not all apps are created equally.

Are all IT professionals created equally?

Are All Forms Of Niacin Created Equally?

I think the “equally” must find its way into these sentences because the writer unconsciously wants to follow a verb with an adverb.

If what the writers of these sentences mean to say is that these things are “not of equal worth,” then I think they should be writing equal and not equally. Especially if they are intentionally echoing the words of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Using the adverb equally places the emphasis on the act of making; using the adjective equal places the emphasis on the quality of the thing that has been created.

POSTSCRIPT: In researching this post I discovered the existence of Mum Bett, an American Founding Mother of whom I’d never heard. She should be in the school books along with Sojourner Truth. You can read about her here.

We’re Governed by Callous Children

In its literal sense the adjective callous is used to describe parts of the skin that are hardened by constant friction or pressure. Used figuratively it refers to insensitive behavior, or hardness of the mind.

Here are some more examples from the web:

Why are people so callous when you need help?

Rude, Callous, Indifferent Customer Service People

SSPCA hunts ‘callous person’ responsible for animal cruelty case

A calloused heart is like a stone.

they brought it on themselves by their selfish and calloused behavior toward the poor.

A variant spelling of callous is callus. This spelling is usually seen in connection with body parts:

Home Remedies for Dry Callused Feet
Frustrated with Crepey, Dry, Callused Hands?
Sage Bath For Hard & Callused Skin

Used literally, the spellings are interchangeable. A foot may be either calloused or callused.

When using the adjective in a figurative sense, however, stick to callous and its forms: a callous person, calloused behavior.

Not so.

The Parsons chair takes its name from its place of invention: the Parsons School of Design founded in Paris in 1921 by Frank Alvah Parsons.

According to an article on a site called Modern Dining Chairs,

The parsons chair is virtually always crafted of hardwood, and features a slightly curving, squared backrest and legs. They are usually featured with slipcover upholstery that entirely covers the legs and gives the chair a solid, monumental appearance. This slipcover is optional or absent on many recent models.

Furniture retailers don’t seem to agree as to the spelling. You can find Parsons chair, parsons chair, Parson chair and parson chair. Until a chair design expert corrects me, I’ll go with Parsons chair in recognition of the fact that the name comes from a proper noun. However, since “Parsons” is not a commercially-registered word, I’m sure that parsons chair cannot be considered incorrect.

The word parson meaning “clergyman” derives ultimately from the same Latin word that gives us person in the sense of “human being.” The word entered English from Anglo-Fr., O.Fr. persone “curate, parson.”

Person may have come to mean “the person in charge of the local church”
by shortening the Latin phrase persona ecclesiae “person of the church.” I suppose that a pronunciation variant turned “person” into “parson.”

The word parsonage, “house for the parson,” is documented from the 15th century.

The word parson occurs in several English expressions. One that I find amusing is the parson’s nose, a reference to the fatty tail end of a cooked chicken or turkey. My granny used to gross us out by eating that bit. She may have called it the pope’s nose.

Here are some other words used to refer to personnae ecclesiae.

chaplain
clergyman
cleric
curate
pastor
preacher
priest
minister
rector
vicar

Catfight at pet clinic

The first sentence of the editorial told me that whoever wrote the headline:

1. hadn’t read the editorial;
2. didn’t know the meaning of “catfight”

How I know:
1. the editorial was about something that happened at an animal shelter, not a clinic.
2. the incident being commented on involved a worker who had threatened to kill his fellow workers. I don’t know of any definition of catfight that includes terroristic threatening.

Here are two definitions of catfight as given in the OED:

A fight between cats. A vicious fight or altercation, esp. between women.

Merriam-Webster makes no reference to fighting women in its definition:

catfight: a bitter and usually intensely personal dispute

The definition at Answers.com also avoids any display of insensitivity towards women:

A fight between or among cats.
Informal. A vociferous dispute: a catfight between farmers and the government over subsidies.

I suggest that what most people understand by catfight, when not used literally of felines, is a fight, verbal or physical, between or among women, as described here:

Catfight is a term for an altercation between two women, typically involving scratching, slapping, hair-pulling, and shirt-shredding as opposed to punching or wrestling. Wikipedia

The word dogfight, has different connotations.

The OED hyphenates the word as dog-fight:

A fight between dogs.
transf. A general disturbance or mêlée; spec. a ‘scrap’ between aircraft.

Merriam-Webster spells it as one word, dogfight:

1 : a fight between or as if between dogs : MELEE; broadly : a fiercely disputed contest 2 : a fight in aerial warfare between two or more fighter planes usually maneuvering at close quarters

Answers.com adds an addtional definition:

An illegal, organized fight between dogs, arranged for spectator entertainment and betting.

Political correctness aside, the words dog and cat carry gendered cultural connotations. For example, if someone describes a heterosexual married couple fighting “like cats and dogs,” which member of the couple do you think represents which animal in the mind of the hearer?