Words & Wordplay

Grammatical Mayhem at the New York Times

January 9, 2011

I thought everyone knew that you can’t qualify “unique.” Something is unique or it’s not – simple as that. And yet, in a Jan. 8, 2011, piece in the New York Times, Neil MacFarquhar writes, “Here in Djenné, the striking Great Mosque is what put the town on the map. It is the largest mud-brick [...]

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Unfortunate Text Clipping at Facebook

December 23, 2010

Here’s how Facebook trimmed a recent comment of mine on my profile page: The full, original comment was, “Happy Birthday! [line break] [line break] (I love the butterfly post),” referring to this status update she had posted: “…entomologists observed a rare butterfly struggling furiously to emerge from its chrysalis. One carefully cut it free, prematurely, [...]

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Grammar Lesson in a Ballard Honey Bucket

November 28, 2010

I love how many activist grammarians we have in Seattle. Today I spotted this editorial update to a label in a Honey Bucket at the Ballard farmer’s market. Folks would probably understand “10 or less people,” but it is more correct to say “10 or fewer,” which our port-a-potty copy editor has pointed out.

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List of Country Names with Six Letters

November 28, 2010

Working on Will Shortz’s Puzzle this morning I came up with this list of country names that consist of exactly six letters. 6-Letter Countries Angola Belize Bhutan Bosnia Brazil Brunei Canada Cyprus France Gambia Greece Guinea Guyana Israel Jordan Kuwait Latvia Malawi Mexico Monaco Norway Panama Russia Rwanda Serbia Sweden Turkey Tuvalu Uganda Zambia

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Scared Studious

September 23, 2010

At Margaret’s birthday dinner last night, Andrea was talking about frightening kids into studying. I immediately proposed a name for her program: ‘Scared Studious.” With stories of the consequences of skipped classes and un-done homework, burger flippers and WalMart stock clerks scare kids into studying so that they can avoid the horrible fate that befell [...]

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