Here’s a beautiful piece by the Anchoress, an honest and complex tribute to the mother who gave her her love of words. It would be interesting to uncover the heredity/genetics of what makes up a writer and reader. And by … Continue reading →
Right from the start–its very title–this NY Times article is a good example of what’s wrong with the paper. Are there any incorrect facts in the piece? I doubt it. My guess is that, strictly speaking, it contains not a … Continue reading →
I sometimes think that whoever writes spam has a flair for the poetic. Consider the following, which I received today: Miss Happiness Umukoro Abidjan-Cote D’Ivoire Dear love, CONFIDENTIAL. I am Miss Happiness Umukoro. the only Daughter of Late Former Director … Continue reading →
As a follow-up to my nu-ku-lar post, see this from Dean Esmay, on mispronouncing words as a sign of intelligence. Dean is speaking especially of words a person has only read rather than heard–certainly not the case for Bush and … Continue reading →
At his ever-interesting blog Done With Mirrors, Callimachus offers the definitive explanation of why George W. Bush says “nukular” for “nuclear,” (as opposed to GW’s own father, who pronounces the word conventionally). Apparently, GW is just following precedent for many … Continue reading →
It’s said all the time on the left, and even by many liberals: Bush lied. Bush lied through his teeth, especially about WMDs in Saddam’s Iraq. I don’t even have to provide the links; we all know what a recurrent … Continue reading →
Vermont English teacher Bret Chenkin has a way with words. This Boston Globe article, headlined “Teacher under investigation for alleged liberalism,” brought back unhappy memories of spending stessed-out high school days preparing for the SAT tests. But they also made … Continue reading →
I try my best to pay attention to grammar and spelling, helped out by the always-handy Spellcheck (shh–don’t tell anyone, but I’m not the world’s best speller, unaided). But as Harriet Miers before me discovered, no doubt to her chagrin, … Continue reading →
Yesterday I was trying to be witty in the comments section, and I was looking for the way to say (and spell) “excuse me” in French. Since I don’t speak French, that meant Googling “handy French phrases translated”, which brought … Continue reading →
We bloggers do love to pick on journalists. But can you blame us? They so often serve up such tempting food for the picking. Michael Totten has a post about one Andrew Jaspan, who is quoted as saying something so … Continue reading →
It’s simple–Karl Rove just needs an editor. Democrats and liberals are in an uproar about some statements Rove made Wednesday at a Manhattan fund-raiser. In case you were on planet Xenon and missed them, here they are: Conservatives saw the … Continue reading →
Today, as on so many days in the past, the murderers of the Iraqi people set about to blow a bunch of them to bits, and have succeeded. Sixty is today’s number. The killers must be so very proud. And … Continue reading →