Tag Archives: language

Dreamwork

Posted on April 1, 2021 by WorldWideWeber

Last night, in the midst of typically inchoate and unrememberable dreams, I came up with two crossword clues that I somehow did remember: 1. _ _ _ _ Tsar did not place this atop Kremlin tower 2. _ _ _ … Continue reading →

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Hydrosonic

Posted on December 6, 2020 by WorldWideWeber

Months ago, Trump elicited guffaws in the non-Trumpist press and social media when he bragged about an amazing new “hydrosonic missile” purportedly under development. In the intervening time he has repeated the phrase—today, for instance: Note how he uses both … Continue reading →

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Clausectomy

Posted on April 18, 2019 by WorldWideWeber

Josh Marshall, among many others, noted the tendentious editing perpetrated a month ago by the Don’s personal attorney general in ever so briefly summarizing the Mueller report, which was finally released today, sort of (lots of missing stuff). What William … Continue reading →

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Phew!

Posted on July 25, 2017 by WorldWideWeber

“There are less people here today than yesterday.” It’s fewer, people! Fewer people!* It’s an easy rule. I think you can handle it, my friends. If you’re talking about a bunch of things (multiple objects), you use fewer, fewest. Example: … Continue reading →

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Eulenspiegel’d

Posted on June 1, 2017 by WorldWideWeber

Our poor little language gets pranked again. It’s Thursday, and if you happen to be in Arlington, Virginia, and if you like oysters, you can eat raw ones at a certain restaurant, from 4:00 p.m. “til supplies last.” (I’ll wait while … Continue reading →

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Disconnect

Posted on January 1, 2016 by WorldWideWeber

One hopes the neighbors have found a common language even if their yard sculptures have not.

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Prefix

Posted on March 14, 2012 by WorldWideWeber

You may think this is about a linguistic nicety, the bit that comes before the main part and imparts a nice twist—something came before, or after (pre-, post-); or the word sort of applies (pseudo-); or the action is being done … Continue reading →

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Crowdsourced

Posted on December 26, 2011 by WorldWideWeber

Some guy at Slate went to a lot of effort to let us know the ten worst catchphrases of 2011. I confess that the only reason I looked at it was to see if it included an annoying tic I … Continue reading →

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Nots

Posted on January 1, 2011 by WorldWideWeber

To kick off the new year, here’s a story by a Russian writer with a very Polish name: Sigismund Krzhizhanovsky. I’m just starting to explore his works, only a few of which have appeared in English. I thought I’d add … Continue reading →

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UTF-8

Posted on December 1, 2010 by WorldWideWeber

Encoding (aka code pages)? No one gives a damn about encoding! True enough. It’s so deeply geeky, it’s hard to imagine any normal person knowing the difference between CP1251 and KOI8-R, for instance. Windows had code pages coming out the … Continue reading →

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