Tag: usage

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Victoria Neufeldt

Bold Words

February 18, 2014 by Victoria Neufeldt | Leave a Comment

One could say that bold words enter the language shouting. An example would be the word AIDS, which was coined in the early 1980s, probably by a journalist, as an initialism for the descriptive medical name of the disease: acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Because the disease burst upon the world so devastatingly, the word AIDS was in the news just about […]

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James Harbeck

Topics, We Front Them | Linguistics, Frankly

January 14, 2014 by James Harbeck | 4 Comments on Topics, We Front Them | Linguistics, Frankly

English is normally a subject-verb-object kind of language, but there are some interesting exceptions, especially in casual contexts. Consider examples such as the following: Poodles, we walk them. Labradors, they walk us. Chickens we have; roads, not so much. Not one of the clauses above follows standard English sentence order, and yet we understand them. […]

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Wilf Popoff

Wasted Words: The Tragedies and Farces of History

December 10, 2013 by Wilf Popoff | 3 Comments on Wasted Words: The Tragedies and Farces of History

  “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce, third as more repetition.” I know Marx would have added that last part had he been on the ball. In the event, he was so fixated on dialectical something or other that he didn’t get around to it. And then there was the business about workers […]

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Karen Virag

GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Verbal Boobery (VB)

November 19, 2013 by Karen Virag | 5 Comments on GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Verbal Boobery (VB)

Verbal whatery? Not long ago in the Air Canada Lounge at Toronto Pearson Airport I noticed a small sign beside a tray of freshly baked cookies. It said:             Now, I have to say, I don’t know why so many people complain about Air Canada. Knowing how many passengers are […]

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Karen Virag

English can be so two-faced

September 17, 2013 by Karen Virag | Leave a Comment

My head literally exploded when I read it! What text, you are wondering, could have caused such a messy and bloody scene? (And if my head literally exploded, shouldn’t I be dead?) Well, the text in question was from an article in Salon magazine (August 22, 2013) decrying the Merriam-Webster (MW) Dictionary definition of the word literally to […]

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Wilf Popoff

WASTED WORDS: Stalking Verbosity

July 30, 2013 by Wilf Popoff | 4 Comments on WASTED WORDS: Stalking Verbosity

Verbosity is the technical term for Wasted Words and it reflects the ongoing motif of this blog series. Verbosity noun the fact or quality of using more words than needed; wordiness. (Oxford Online Dictionary) Not much here to make a writer proud. I admit to being verbosity-obsessed: while writing I’m terrorized by the possibility I’ll […]

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Karen Virag

GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Whom—don’t leave us! We hardly knew ye!

May 14, 2013 by Karen Virag | 2 Comments on GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Whom—don’t leave us! We hardly knew ye!

In the April 2013 Atlantic magazine, writer Megan Garber gleefully wrote: “Whom, I am thrilled to inform you, is dying.” And though I agree that whom seems to be going the way of the floppy disk, I don’t share Garber’s glee. Perhaps it’s because I think that grammatical inflection (when words change form to reflect […]

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Karen Virag

GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Learning to like “like”

April 9, 2013 by Karen Virag | 2 Comments on GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Learning to like “like”

One often hears complaints about how some people litter their sentences with the word like—not as a noun, verb, preposition or conjunction, but as, like, an interjection. Like that. Now I know that Canadians like to blame Americans for all the world’s ills, but we can’t really lay this verbal tic at the feet of […]

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Karen Virag

GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Things that dangle

March 12, 2013 by Karen Virag | 1 Comment on GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Things that dangle

Things that dangle in the night. And in the day. Hours before giving birth, a woman’s boyfriend leaves her for her best friend and quits the talent agency they run together to start his own competing business. Now that is one amazing—and appalling!—boyfriend. First he gives birth, then he betrays his girlfriend. Typical man. In […]

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Karen Virag

GETTABLE GRAMMAR: I are confused

February 12, 2013 by Karen Virag | 1 Comment on GETTABLE GRAMMAR: I are confused

Gettable Grammar is a monthly series of conjectures, opinions and postulates by Karen Virag. I ARE CONFUSED, AREN’T I? Have you ever wondered why we say, “He is, isn’t he?” and “She is, isn’t she?” but we don’t say “I am, amn’t I?” (though you might say this if you lived in certain parts of […]

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Wilf Popoff

WASTED WORDS: My hit list

February 5, 2013 by Wilf Popoff | 2 Comments on WASTED WORDS: My hit list

I have a dream: English users create their equivalent to the Académie Française to mind the language. I’m at the first hearing of this august body presenting a list of words I want banned. The English Academy must acquiesce if the language is to be saved. First up is the noun process. I recognize that this […]

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Karen Virag

GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Less is More

January 15, 2013 by Karen Virag | Leave a Comment

Gettable Grammar is a monthly series of conjectures, opinions and postulates by Karen Virag. LESS IS MORE, NOT FEWER. EXCEPT SOMETIMES. The question of when to use fewer and when to use less perplexes many people. Generally speaking, you should use fewer to refer to a smaller number and less to refer to a smaller […]

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Victoria Neufeldt

New Words

January 2, 2013 by Victoria Neufeldt | 2 Comments on New Words

The end of a year brings thoughts of old and new words—and not only to us word birds, who throughout the year are tuned into what’s coming in and what’s fading out. It’s generally easier to recognize the new than the obsolescent. New words and meanings can virtually explode onto the linguistic scene. Such terms usually relate […]

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Wilf Popoff

WASTED WORDS: The editor as analyst

November 24, 2012 by Wilf Popoff | Leave a Comment

Wasted Words is a series of musings on language and usage by editor emeritus Wilf Popoff. I find it hard to edit without playing amateur psychologist. Why did the writer do this? Carelessness? Ignorance? Of course it can be either. Compared to editors writers are not as alert, which is why they need us. But […]

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