Fun with Linguistics - Thanks, Sarah Palin!
Why Palin sounds so weird & how to make sense of her rambling "sentences" If you're anything like me, you love anything involving: 1) dialectal analysis of spoken American English, and 2)...
View ArticlePalin makes up word - attempt to sound smart w/update
Remember McCain and Palin's parent/student/teacher conference with Katie Couric the other night? I realize it was ages ago in campaign years, but who could forget... McKeating5 calling Palin's Pakistan...
View ArticleField Guide to Republican Tics
Not to worry, I'm not going to burden you with a complete or even partial Field Guide to Republican Tics here. But I thought I would shine a light on a few of them - and from time to time add more -...
View ArticlePalin's Grammar
Moliere pointed out that even kings must bow to grammar. Palin not only bows, she curls up in a fetal position. My friends were pointing this out while we were watching the debate. I admit I was...
View ArticlePalindrone UPDATED
pal-in-drone: n 1 An often long, nasal-sounding sentence which, heard forward or backward, is incomprehensible to the speaker and listener. 2 (courtesy of Dave Muckey) A mindless bee that preens the...
View ArticleSub Par Education and Sub Prime Economics
INTRO We're in the thick of finishing our "Sub Prime Blues" video, as I mentioned last week, but an occurrence at my classes on Friday night and all through Saturday seems at once so unnerving and...
View ArticleSarah Palin: ESL student
JISHOU, HUNAN -- After three weeks of reading their diaries and other compositions, I've been able to identify some patterns in the written English of my freshmen. They have not fully understood the...
View ArticleMe or I -- a quick tip on choosing
One of the joys of the next four years will be not having to cringe in embarrassment every time the president opens his mouth - just the opposite. President-elect Obama speaks very well. It was with...
View ArticleIt's "its" not "it's" -- Updated
As a general rule, I don't nitpick people's grammar. I can almost guarantee there will be some misspellings and grammar errors in this very post. I don't edit my friends' IM messages and I don't reply...
View ArticleStalking the elusive em dash
and other special characters As an old timey typographer and typesetter, it truly chaps my gnarled ass to see hyphens used as en dashes and em dashes, not to mention the use of an asterisk (*) as a...
View ArticleGrammar and punctuation: A primer for Kossacks
Many, many people on this site write extremely well. And I do not want to nitpick, but there are some common mistakes made that I thought a grammar/punctuation freak could help with. And note, I ended...
View ArticleIt's not "It's", It's "Its"!
People! There is nothing morally or politically wrong with poor grammar, but it makes for distracting reading. Keep this simple rule in mind, and those of us more grammar-sensitive will breathe a sigh...
View ArticleMeaning of "Democrat Party"
I've never been sure why I'm supposed to find the term "Democrat Party" insulting, other than that Republicans pronounce it as if I should. Why does chopping off a syllable turn the word into a slur?...
View ArticleThe Deathing of English
What’s with the recent gooping up of the language? I realize that, since the advent of the Pentagon, our poor tongue has been especially susceptible to contortions completely outside the realm of...
View ArticleLanguage and its needless but inevitable watchdogs
Love of language, like love of country, is most often expressed by bashing those perceived not to have enough of it. You practically can't go anywhere without meeting someone who thinks the language is...
View ArticleLinguist-commentators 1: John McWhorter
From some of the comments in this post, I have decided to do a series of posts presenting an overview of the works of my favorite linguist-writers John McWhorter, Geoffrey Nunberg, and Steven Pinker....
View ArticleLinguist-commentators 2: Geoffrey Nunberg
Continuing my series from yesterday, I present an overview of my favorite linguist-writer, Geoffrey Nunberg.
View ArticleLinguist-commentators 3: Steven Pinker
The final part of my series, which began with this post and continued with this one, concerns Steven Pinker. My overview of Pinker's works will be narrower than for the other linguist-writers I...
View ArticleRep. van Hollen, it's "dinner with whom" not "who"!
I was checking my email in-box and saw this in the subject line: "Dinner with who?" And I think to myself: Does someone not know the difference between the subjective and objective case? Well,...
View ArticleFox grammar police screw up
Ok. This isn't much of a diary, but it's pretty funny. I posted it an hour or so ago in an open thread but apparently nobody's seen it. Fox Nation had an ad on TPM saying, "What if Bush had said 'much...
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