Not the basketball player, but the amazing Dr. Johnson (who has appeared before in these magical pages). Creator of the first modern English dictionary. Today he would be 300 years old and still bitching. Bitching, that is, in the most witty and quotable way. Go read some of his dictionary. Today’s word is pickapack, which […]
Archive | Language/Lit
Frankenstein
In the book, “Frankenstein,” the creature is fast, sleek, powerful, and intelligent. Far from the grunting beast in the movies, the book creature says things like: “How can I thank you, my best and only benefactor? From your lips first have I heard the voice of kindness directed towards me; I shall be forever grateful; […]
Google Books is So Good. But Imperfect
I really like Google Books. Lots of times, when I’ve considered buying a book that isn’t in the library, I’ve just read a chapter or two on Google Books and made my decision. Or when trying to remember just the way someone described something, I can find the book and read for myself: “My very […]
Conjugation
This isn’t a breakthrough or anything, but I’m impressed that two-year-olds know how to conjugate verbs. That is, my daughter doesn’t just use words she hears. She actually changes those words in order to use them in ways that she hasn’t heard. And I know she does this because she makes mistakes on the irregular […]
Citing Kindle
I recently wondered how to properly cite a tweet. Today I read, on The Chicago Manual of Style’s New Questions and Answers page, a question about citing something from Kindle. The world is changing. [While we’re on the Q and A page, check out the sort of snitty response at the very bottom. I avoid […]
Hopefully People Will Stop Complaining
Some people can’t get over the word “hopefully.” They want it to only mean, “in a hopeful manner,” and not to mean, “I am hopeful that”. Thus, the following paragraph from here: — Everyone uses “hopefully” as a shortcut for “I hope.” It is not. Yes, the dictionary allows it, but that’s just bending to […]
Latest List of Top Books
Newsweek has published a “meta-list” of The Top 100 Books of All Time. And since they did it by plugging other people’s lists into a model, they didn’t even have to make a single decision. Fiction and non-fiction are mixed. Poetry and prose. I’ve read five of the top ten, and about 35-40 of the […]
Summer Reads
From The Guardian, a list of the best summer reads of all times. I don’t know what constitutes a summer read. I’ve read, and really liked, the first item on the list. So I was all prepared to go through the list, giving my opinions on all the ones I’d read. But, um, well, I […]
Signing In
Some esoteric grammar talk coming up. Run and hide. I haven’t seen this addressed anywhere else, so here I am addressing a need. (I haven’t looked very hard, but whatever.) Do you “sign into” the web site, or “sign in to” the web site? It’s used both ways all over the place, but in my […]
Congratulations to English!
The English language has (arguably) hit its million-word mark. See for yourself. [Thanks to @foliosociety]