A reader remarked on my punctuation of so at the beginning of several sentences in a recent post: No commas after “so” as you have used here in your examples! Here are two of the offending sentences: So, how was the interview? So, what should we do now? These examples appear in a discussion of … Read more
The word hypocrite is especially popular during election season. Here’s a small sampling from the Web: Former Senator Landrieu calls Jindal ‘a hypocrite’ Wall Street executives are fighting back against Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley, branding [him] a hypocrite for attacking the big banks. Carly Fiorina Slams Tim Cook As A Hypocrite For Indiana Criticism. … Read more
A reader asks, Is the term ‘in and of itself’ usually associated with a reward, complete: can the reward be either in or of itself or is the separate use insufficient. I had to puzzle over the question a bit. I think it is asking if the phrases “in itself” and “of itself” can be … Read more
A reader wonders about two expressions: For many years I’ve wondered about Fat Chance and Slim Chance – both meaning “little chance,” but where’d they come from? The Ngram Viewer indicates that “slim chance” came along about eighty years earlier than “fat chance” and that “slim chance” is far more common in print than “fat … Read more
A reader asks, Is it “skid row” or “skid road,” and what’s the proper usage? The expression “skid row” is the common term in modern usage, but it’s thought to derive from an earlier term associated with the logging industry. In Washington State and other centers of the lumber industry, loggers built roads out of … Read more
Writing about gendered pronouns recently, I mentioned that “cis female” is a gender choice on Facebook. The prefix cis- derives from a Latin preposition meaning “on this side of.” Cisalpine Gaul, for example, was the part of Gaul located on the Italian side of the Alps. The part on the far side of the Alps … Read more
A reader asks, What is the difference between “dramatic” and “melodramatic” in common usage, such as “Don’t be so dramatic” or “Don’t be so melodramatic”? In common usage, both words are used interchangeably to mean something like “don’t make such a fuss.” A similar negative use of the noun drama is seen in the expression … Read more
A reader writes: I often hear people say sentences like, “His and I’s property.” “Jimmy and I’s vacation.” I have tried to explain that I’s is not an acceptable genitive pronoun, but I have heard it from many different sources here in Utah. Could you write something about this in your posts? Because the first … Read more
Most of us have probably been sucked in by one of the thousands of quizzes that proliferate on the Web as a form of entertainment. My weakness is anything language-related. One that lured me recently has the title “Can You Pass an 8th Grade Test from 1912?” I should have been suspicious as soon as … Read more
A reader has a question about these two words: Could you please shed some light on the usage of ‘whence and thence’ in a sentence? I read these words many times but want to learn their exact usage in sentence. The words date from the early thirteenth century. In their original spellings, they were inflected … Read more
Because of their daily familiarity, body parts contribute to the language far beyond their literal uses. Finger is an especially rich source of expressions. There are the literal uses: ring finger, index finger, middle finger, little finger, and forefinger. The earliest use of finger as a verb (1450) was with the meaning “to point.” The … Read more
A reader asks, When did it become acceptable to drop the preposition after the verb graduate, as in “I graduated high school in 2000”? This nonstandard usage has become common in colloquial speech, but it is still not acceptable in formal English. The American dictionary Merriam-Webster includes an example from ESPN that suggests that dropping … Read more