I’ve begun to notice the use of “did” in contexts that call for “had.” In an episode of CSI New York, the Sinese character remarks: If I didn’t do it, he would have killed me. He’s referring to something bad he did earlier in the episode. He wasn’t killed, so the act he’s referring to … Read more
A few times since beginning to write for DWT I’ve had occasion to reflect on the question of what fuels the anger occasionally expressed in the comments. One explanation I’ve come up with is that because language is so much a part of our identity, the criticism of usage or pronunciation may be perceived as … Read more
Sorry for the small delay on the fifth round. It was supposed to go live yesterday in the afternoon, but we had a small technical problem. The competition is going pretty well though. On the fourth round we had close to 500 votes, and the winning story passed to the grand finale with just 13 … Read more
Walking past a bank the other day I noticed a sign that said We do loans. I’ve known for some time that some people “do lunch,” but I missed the transition from “making loans” to “doing loans.” This usage of all-purpose “do” in a multitude of expressions is nothing new in English. Ask Bessie to … Read more
Most writers of English in every part of the world acknowledge the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as a reliable reference to settle questions of spelling, pronunciation, and usage. Today computers are used to organize, store, and supplement the online Second Edition of the OED at the rate of 4,000 new words a year. But the … Read more
I’m always learning from readers’ comments. Something I learned recently is that not all writers agree that reading Dickens is a good thing. Dickens is not my favorite 19th century novelist–George Eliot is–but I think that modern writers can learn a lot about scene structure and the management of multiple characters and subplots from reading … Read more
When a reader asked about the use of brackets in a recent email, I started to refer him to my post When and How to Use Brackets and leave it at that. Curiosity overcame me, however, and I tried to track down the complete original. Here’s the quotation that prompted the reader’s question: [We’ll] probably … Read more
A reader asks: Does the word “sucummbed” really exist? As in “he finally sucummbed to the cold and lay face down in the snow”… What’s interesting about this question is not that succumbed is misspelled, but that this reader kept encountering this misspelling as he tried to find a definition. Ordinarily when I type a … Read more
A DWT reader, exasperated by an online newspaper article formatted as eleven one-sentence “paragraphs,” asks for a definition of “paragraph” and wants to know how long a paragraph should be. A paragraph is a unit of thought that develops an idea. A traditional paragraph contains a topic sentence that states the idea to be developed, … Read more
The fourth round is open for voting. If you are reading this in your email inbox or via an RSS reader, remember that you need to visit the site (by clicking on the title of this post) to be able to vote on the poll. The Prizes The competition will be sponsored by WhiteSmoke. It … Read more
A reader writes: So, there I was, reading The Other McCain (Robert McCain):Â “the conservative movement in general tends to esteem punditry over reporting” What is the difference between punditry and reporting? The word pundit entered English in 1672 with the meaning “learned Hindu,” from a Hindi word for “a learned man” or “teacher.” Pundit took … Read more