The guy who made violent threats against Merriam-Webster last year over its definitions of female and girl has been sentenced to a year in prison.
Related reading
All OCA dictionary posts (Pinboard)
Friday, April 14, 2023
A dictionary and a prison
By Michael Leddy at 8:19 AM comments: 0
Thursday, April 13, 2023
“All-In”
A look at the conditions of teaching and striking at a regional university in Illinois: “All-In.” It’s a point of view, of course, but it’s one that grounded in fact.
Our household is supporting the strike by picketing and by contributing to a fund to help strikers in need. And I’m now able to add the noise of my Metropolitan Police Whistle to the picket-line din. (It took me three days to find it.)
5:48 p.m.: The strike has been suspended.
[When I began keeping a blog in 2004, I made a decision never to mention my university by name. I wanted to keep this work separate. And now I’m retired, and I still do.]
By Michael Leddy at 4:07 PM comments: 4
MSNBC, sheesh
Chris Jansing, earlier this afternoon: “The Washington Post reports that Jack Smith is honing in on Trump’s post-election fundraising,” &c.
Garner’s Modern English Usage (2022) notes that home in is “the traditional and still preferred phrase”:
In modern print sources — both AmE and BrE — the collocation homing in on the ~ predominates over *honing in on the ~ by a 2-to-1 margin.Garner puts hone in at stage 4 of GMEU’s language-change index:
The form becomes virtually universal but is opposed on cogent grounds by a few linguistic stalwarts (the traditionalists that David Foster Wallace dubbed “snoots”: syntax nudniks of our time).So how can I not say “Sheesh”? But I’m still willing to acknowledge that usage seems to be honeward bound.
Related reading
All OCA sheesh posts (Pinboard)
By Michael Leddy at 1:16 PM comments: 0
Cloud-stuff
One more passage, from a visit to Atlantis.
Steven Millhauser, From the Realm of Morpheus (1986).
Related reading
All OCA Steven Millhauser posts (Pinboard)
By Michael Leddy at 8:28 AM comments: 0
Recently updated
Vekkia book light Now with a link to an apropos poem.
By Michael Leddy at 8:27 AM comments: 0
E.g. , i.e. , etc.
The Chicago Manual of Style explains their use.
By Michael Leddy at 8:21 AM comments: 5
Wednesday, April 12, 2023
Thimbles
Carl Hausman recounts a visit with Morpheus to a land of giants.
Steven Millhauser, From the Realm of Morpheus (1986).
Related reading
All OCA Steven Millhauser posts (Pinboard)
By Michael Leddy at 8:36 AM comments: 0
Vekkia book light
Curtains open in the morning? The sun is glaring. Curtains closed? Too dark. Enter the Vekkia book light. Small, sturdy, just right.
*
April 13: I should have added a link to this post: “Some Enchanted Evening.” More light!
By Michael Leddy at 8:35 AM comments: 0
Tuesday, April 11, 2023
A triple double
In today’s Mutts, Mooch announces that he is tired of being a cat. So, Earl asks, what does he want to be?
[Mutts, April 11, 2023.]
I think Mooch must have gone to my elementary school, where I once overheard an extraordinary triple double-negative: “I ain’t got none. I don’t want none. I don’t need none.” Which, obviously, I have never forgotten.
See also Stan Carey, who cautions, “Don’t never tell nobody not to use no double negatives.”
By Michael Leddy at 4:46 PM comments: 2
Make Something Wonderful
From Apple, Make Something Wonderful : Steve Jobs in his own words, in speeches, interviews, and correspondence. To read online or download (free).
By Michael Leddy at 4:36 PM comments: 0