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...
WORDSWORDSWORDS#6 (Houses)
How do you pronounce H-O-U-S-E-S? You know, the plural of a domicile where you live? Well, I thought I knew, but lately I'm not so sure....
WORDSWORDSWORDS#5 (Fulsome/Peruse)
If you ask most people about the words listed above--"fulsome" and "peruse", you would likely be told that the first word means "highly"...
WORDSWORDSWORDS#4 (Short-Lived/Flied Out)
My own children scoffed when I said about something ephemeral that it was "short-lived", pronouncing "lived" to rhyme with "jived". I...
WORDSWORDSWORDS#3 (Cliche/Couldn'tCareLess/Hold the Fort)
More change! It was probably about twenty years ago that I first noticed the appearance of the word "cliche" as an adjective in addition...
WORDSWORDSWORDS#2 (Primer/Caribbean)
One of the great language mysteries is the way words change in some significant way almost without reason. On the other hand, that's the...
WORDSWORDSWORDS#1 (Schism/Acumen)
I'm sure you all recognize the line "Words, words, words." from Hamlet. It's his response to Polonius's question "What do you read, my...