


Media mishaps: Grammar grinch gripes again
I heard it again this morning: NASA pronounced “nassau.” NASA is not pronounced “nassau.” Nassau (NASS-aw) is a city, the capital of the Bahamas. NASA (NASS-uh) is an acronym for […]

Finally, the banished words for 2020
Earlier this year I looked for the 2020 Banished Words list from Lake Superior State University and somehow managed to miss it until now. This is the 45th annual list […]

They is just sayin’
As most of my regular readers already know, I’m a retired editor. And as you might have guessed, I have followed — with considerable consternation — the discussions and explanations […]

Hating liars
Presidential candidate Joe Biden really got my attention last week … and not in a good way. First there was the “No malarkey” tour. Okay, that’s a nice, if dated, […]

Will issues verbal thrashing of Mike Pence
For a lesson in how to wield the English language, check out George Will’s column in the Washington Post. You needn’t agree that “Trump is no longer the worst person in […]

‘Be Best’?
I’m among those who don’t understand what Melania Trump means with her “Be Best” campaign. My first thought was that since English is her second language, maybe she just missed […]

I learned a new word today
(Yes, it’s a real word. I looked it up. And not surprisingly, it’s been discussed more than once in the last year. But I’d managed to remain ignorant until I […]

Another Word of the Year: ‘feminism’
Two weeks ago, Dictionary.com announced that its Word of the Year was complicit. Today another dictionary, Merriam-Webster, announced its Word of the Year: feminism. As with complicit, the selection of feminism […]