SPELLING BEE
Every year for decades on the last day of school before Thanksgiving, I would surprise my students with a "pop quiz" of sorts. I would tell them that they seemed symptomatic of "senioritis" far earlier than anticipated, and that I was getting a little tired of their "uppity" attitude. Here was a quiz that would bring them back to earth. Some moaned when they heard it was a spelling test, but others, having won spelling bees throughout their childhoods, awaited the quiz with
YOU ARE WHAT YOU SAY YOU ARE
Back in 2013, the New York Times published a dialect quiz that I passed along to my students most years. Most of my charges were...
WORDSWORDSWORDS#13 (Begging the Question)
Last week, Washington Post columnist Mark Lasswell penned a language column about a long-abused phrase- begging the question . My...
CRYPTOQUOTE
When I was a ninth-grader, I devoured books--often completing a book a day, if not more. Of course, as was my practice, I didn't always...
WORDSWORDSWORDS#12 (Sike/Psyche/Psyche)
Even though I am a prescriptivist when it comes to the English language, I readily acknowledge that language is always evolving and I am...
WORDSWORDSWORDS#11 ("Brand" new)
I was listening to a commercial the other night and heard the phrase "brand new" used to describe the appearance of an object after the...
WORDSWORDSWORDS # 10 (Based on or off/Whoa or Woah)
Sometimes, the language issues I raise in this series of blog posts are widely discussed by usage experts like Benjamin Dreyer (whose...
WORDSWORDSWORDS#9 (Vers/Alright)
"For all their bluster about bombing the Islamic State into oblivion, neither Donald J. Trump nor Senator Ted Cruz of Texas have...
THE VOICES (Part I)
Recently, I assigned a reading from Benjamin Dreyer's delightful examination of English language usage, Dreyer's English, to my AP...
WORDSWORDSWORDS#8 ("Mondegreens")
Thought a humorous piece on language would be good for today. I didn't know the word "mondegreens" until I read a column in The New York...
