So here's today's challenge: come up with a set of twelve movie titles that contain month names, one for each month. Each movie should ideally be fairly well-known. No one-word titles. Preferably, no TV movies, but those are acceptable in a pinch. The month names in the titles don't have to refer to the month; for example, any movie with the word "May" in the title counts, even if the word in that context doesn't refer to the month.

Warning: This challenge may not be possible. I came up with only four on my own; IMDB searches led me to eight more, but I had heard of only four of those, and at least one of them appears to be extremely obscure.

Still, come up with as many as you can.

I'll list my answers later in this entry. But first, some side notes:

I'm going to disqualify the one that I thought of for May. It was Seven Days in May--nothing wrong with that title, but as I did other searches, I realized it was far from unique. All of the following are actual movie titles (though some are the English titles of foreign movies):

• Seven Days in January
• Two Days in February
• The Prince Edward Island Development Plan, Part 2: Four Days in March
• Two Days in April
• Seven Days in May
• Six Days in June [also Five]
• Four Days in July
• Three Days in August
• 7 Days in September [also Four, also A Few]
• Two Days in October
• Four Days in November
• One Day in December

So that's a fun set, but let's disqualify all of them from the above challenge.

Bonus round: Come up with a set of seven movies whose titles contain the names of the days of the week. I could only think of one on my own; searches led me to three others that I'd heard of, and three others that I hadn't heard of. One of the day names appears in three famous titles; the others in at most one or two, though it depends on what you mean by "famous," of course.

One possible set of answers to both the month-name challenge and the day-name challenge after the cut.

I thought to myself, "Neat--I don't know why Gaza would have a sea-spire, but it sounds cool, whatever it is."

And then I realized that of course what they were discussing was actually the Gaza cease-fire.

I <3 the OED.

And dictionary editors in general.

Lexicographer Erin McKean gave a talk at TED in 2007 that covered some related topics, though I think I like Sheidlower's discussion of the issue better.

(Note: Video with sound immediately starts playing if you follow the link to the McKean talk.)

Most of these are not shirts I would wear (so don't get 'em for me), and some of them seem to me more suited to a greeting card or one-panel comic strip than a T-shirt, but still.

Here are some I was amused by:

• I [heart] Accuracy, for the casually dressed med student/pedant in your life.
• I [foot] Madlibs.
• I <3 <3 <3 Polygamy.
• God's Volcano Project, for science fair participants.
• Viva la Evolución!
• Viva la [Dance Dance] Revolution
• The word Greece, with a British flag over it. It's possible this is some kind of political statement, in which case never mind; I was just amused by the surreal juxtaposition.
• Cinco de Mayo, for whitebread Spanish speakers.
• Faux Paw.
• Picture of a flower lei, with this caption: I went to Hawaii and I got sex. It's a Secret Yet!
• The word Soccer, with a picture of an American football over it. I'm not quite sure how to classify this; it's sort of a roundabout not-quite-pun, kind of like a double Secret Yet.
• A horse playing a basketball game called HUMAN.
• Hugs AND Drugs. As the description line puts it, "Why choose one or the other, when you can have both?!"

A few years back, Arthur E introduced me to the word "niephling," a gender-neutral word for nieces and nephews. Most useful when the niephling-to-be's gender is unknown, or (in plural) when referring to a set of nieces and nephews collectively.

The other day, Karen H used the word "nibling," which I had never heard before. Apparently (according to that Wiktionary entry) coined by analogy with "sibling." Which seems mildly odd to me; if I'd coined the word, I might've tried to come up with something similar to "cousin," 'cause to me the idea of nieces and nephews is more like the idea of cousins than like the idea of siblings. Then again, I quite like the word "nibling" regardless of its derivation, and "nousin" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

(After casting about for other gender-neutral close-kinship terms, I noticed "parent," and momentarily thought that perhaps uncles and aunts should be collectively referred to as "aurents." Which is further evidence, if any were needed, that I shouldn't be left in charge of coining words.)

Wiktionary's first cite of "nibling" dates to 1989 (in a university-press book), but several recent cites in Wiktionary, as well as various Google search results for [nibling], suggest to me that the word may be catching on.

The word "niephling," sadly, does not seem to be catching on. It appears on only half a dozen web pages. A couple of different people have apparently coined it independently; I'll have to ask Arthur whether he did so as well, or whether he got it from someone else.

An alternative spelling, niefling, is in slightly wider use. And a Salon commenter a few years ago introduced a sort of hybrid of all these term: niebling. I kinda like that word, but it would make me want to hide my rings from any niebling who visited.

Anyway, I think I'll stick with "niephling" for the time being, but if "nibling" continues to catch on, I may switch. The latter is certainly easier to spell, and it has a more affectionate sound to it (to my ear), more suitable (than "niephling") for saying to one's infant niblings.

But just thinking of the song isn't enough; for it to count, someone has to be able to sing at least eight consecutive words of the song, including the specified word.

Depending on how you're playing, players can take turns trying to come up with more songs that contain the given word, until nobody can think of any more. To make it more challenging, you can set a time limit. In the boardgame, for example, players are divided into two teams, and after being assigned a word (from a deck of cards), the teams take turns coming up with songs for that word; the first team that can't come up with a song within 30 seconds loses that round.

The game can be fun and challenging even with pretty common words--it can be hard to mentally search through the songs you know to find one that contains the given word, and it's harder to do so within a time limit, and then you have to remember enough of the lyrics to count, and you have to sing them. And then you (or others, depending on what rules you're using) have to keep doing that, coming up with different songs with the same word.

But one of the things that appeals to me most about the game in the abstract (though this makes it a rather different game, and probably less fun to play in person) is coming up with words that don't appear in very many songs--possibly even a word that's a hapax legomenon within the space of all song lyrics. I mean, okay, there are really an awful lot of songs, so the chances of a given word appearing in only one are very low. But when I hear a particularly unusual word in a song, I often think "That would be a good Encore word."

As noted above, this version of the game would probably be no fun in person. It essentially amounts to "I've got a song in mind; guess what it is!" There would be long pauses while everyone thought; it would become a game of silence rather than of song.

But I think it might be fun in an online version, where there's no time limit. If it helps, think of this as a puzzle rather than as a game.

So: For each of the below-listed words, come up with a song whose lyrics contain the word.

As with Encore, for it to count, you have to be able to sing eight consecutive words of the song (including the specified word). The singing part is on the honor system; we won't know whether you have the tune right, but as you type the words into a comment, try singing them to yourself.

Also, at least one other player has to be familiar with the song for it to count.

No using Google, your music library, or other aide-mémoire.

And no cheating, unless it will make the game more fun for everyone. (For example, if you want to write a song that uses these words, you can break the "one other player has to know it" rule. But if you're gonna do that, try to use at least two of the words, and do tell us that the song is by you. And come up with a tune for it; I don't think it counts if you just use the words in a poem.)

Note that I have a specific song in mind for each of these, but I imagine that there's more than one song for most of them; any song that contains the word counts. Which is good, because some of the songs I have in mind are fairly obscure. Though I'm pretty sure that for each song, at least one of my regular readers knows the song.

Added later: I've adopted a variation of Vardibidian's notation system: boldface for words nobody's found yet; strikethrough for words where someone's come up with the same song I was thinking of; italics for words where someone's come up with a different song; italic strikethrough when both my song and another song have been found.

• adorn
• blazing
• cellar
• defied
• embers
• frequently
• gavel
• happens
• incidents
• judgment
• kangaroo
• longitudes
• monarch
• NYPD
• observe
• perpendicular
• quarter
• resist
• sacrificial
• tranquility
• unexpectedly
• vittles
• whom
• XII (yes, this one's silly, but the other X words I came up with were worse)
• yawning
• zombie

There were a bunch of great words I had to leave out in order to end up with an alphabet. My favorite of those was probably "antepenultimate," from the Flanders & Swann song "Have Some Madeira, M'Dear"; I left that out because I don't know the song well enough myself to be able to sing eight consecutive words including that one.

I was also sad to leave out "petrochemical," but "perpendicular" was too good to pass up (and the song I had in mind for the latter is probably better-known than the song for the former).

I should note that you of course don't have to answer all of these at once. Anytime you think of a song for one of them, go ahead and post a comment.

Also, feel free to post other words to challenge others. I recommend that you try for unusual words (ideally two or more syllables apiece).

Oh, and to prevent the comment thread from becoming unmanageable, after three or four people have come up with songs for a given word, please don't post any more on that word unless you've thought of something too good to pass up.

One thing I considered when I was coming up with this list was trying to use only songs that matched a theme. It became clear that that was going to take too much time, so I gave up, but in case anyone else wants to try, you don't have to do a full alphabet of words. You could do a group of five that start with the same unusual letter, for example. Or a set of words that are all place names, or all people names, or all math/science terms, or all verbs. Or a set of songs that are all Christmas songs, or all musicals, or all songs by the same person or people. And so on.

All of those things, of course, tend to make this more puzzle-like and less game-like; it becomes more a matter of finding The Right Answer and less of coming up with a multitude of different answers. But puzzles are fun, too.

The "-im" suffix, in words derived from Hebrew, is generally a masculine plural, as far as I can tell (I'm sure Shmuel or others will correct me if that's wrong). So words like "cherubim," "seraphim," "Nephilim," "dybbukim," "Hasidim," "kibbutzim," "klezmorim," and "goyim" are plural.

In English, other plural forms are often acceptable. For example, it's fine in English to say "cherubs," "seraphs," "dybbuks," and even "goys." (We usually talk about the Nephilim in plural; I don't think I've seen "Nephil" singular.)

But in all those cases, it's not correct to use the "-im" forms as singular. * "A Nephilim walks into a bar" is grammatically wrong; likewise * "Wow, that cherubim is totally hot."

I imagine that part of the confusion comes from Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind in the Door, in which there's a character who's referred to as a cherubim. But even there, L'Engle was aware that that's nonstandard:

Calvin made a sound which, if he had been less astonished, would have been a laugh. "But cherubim is plural."

The fire-spouting beast returned, "I am practically plural. The little boy thought I was a drive of dragons, didn't he? [...]"

A Wind in the Door, p. 56 of (I guess) the 1974 Dell edition

Of course, this is only an issue for -im words that come from Hebrew. For example, "victim," "verbatim," "grim," "disclaim," "denim," and "Sondheim" are not plurals.

For details and a cite, see Word Spy.

Alicia Summers of El Mirage, Arizona[, said:] "Did Palin really think she could come into a race at the 23rd hour and not be subjected to questions?"

--Palin daughter's pregnancy stirs strong emotions from iReporters, article at cnn.com, retrieved 2 September 2008, 10:29 a.m.

TSOR suggests that the phrase has been used by others, apparently fairly prominently, in recent years, but it appears to be pretty rare, especially compared to the traditional "11th hour" version. At any rate, this was the first I had seen the "23rd hour" phrasing.

As usual, an asterisk indicates an incorrect-usage example. I made up all the examples; they’re not quotes from anyone in particular.

This time around, for all the items that are on the Common Errors in English page or in the Eggcorns database, I've just provided links rather than comments.

bellow for below

Just a typo, but a spellchecker won't catch it.

conscience for conscious

Amazed I haven't mentioned this one before; very common error.

envelop for envelope

Common error.

hair-brained for hare-brained

Common error; also eggcorn.

lumpen for lumpy

The definition of "lumpen" is a little complicated, but in essence the term refers to lower-class people. It has nothing to do with being lumpy.

moral for morale

Common error.

nuptual for nuptial

This is one that I often get wrong, embarrassingly. Common error.

palette cleanser for palate cleanser

I saw this twice in an hour, in two different places, back in May. Common error.

palm

Writers often say "she palmed the pill" to mean "she shook the pill out of the bottle and into her palm," not realizing that the verb "palm" has specific connotations of stealth. It's what magicians do, for example: they palm items to make them seem to disappear.

peddle for pedal

Common error; also eggcorn.

queue for cue

As in * "That's my queue to say..." Common error; also eggcorn.

sometimes for sometime

This one's a little tricky. "Sometime" can mean either "former" ("my sometime occupation") or "at some point" ("come see me sometime"). "Sometimes" has a similar meaning to the latter, but not, in my usage, to the former; I can't say * "my sometimes occupation." However, MW11 has an entry for "sometimes" as an adjective meaning "sometime," dating back to the 16th century or so, so apparently I'm wrong about this. Still, I don't recommend this usage.

wail (or wale) for whale

Most commonly in "wail away" or "wail on"; to "whale" or "whale on" something is to strike, hit, or thrash it. "Wail away on the guitar" might be correct in some contexts, but most of the time it's a mistake. Common error; also eggcorn.

wile away for while away

Common error.

wiz kid for whiz kid

Clearly an eggcorn, but not listed yet in the eggcorn database. A whiz kid is someone who is a whiz at something; the word "whiz" may ultimately derive from "wizard" (MW11 is uncertain), but "wiz kid" is incorrect. I imagine part of the confusion here might derive from the line from The Wizard of Oz: "You'll find he is a whiz of a wiz, if ever a wiz there was!"

woebegotten for woebegone? or maybe for misbegotten?

Is this a regionalism of some sort? I've seen it a couple of times now, and I'm always a little mystified.

ya'll for y'all

This is just a misspelling, or maybe I mean mispunctuation. Apostrophes go where letters are missing; in this case, the apostrophe marks the missing "ou". There wouldn't be any reason for the apostrophe to appear after the "a." A remarkable number of well-educated people were never taught that apostrophes denote missing letters (or numbers), and thus ended up with some odd ideas about apostrophe use in certain contexts. (Yes, there are other correct uses for apostrophes too. But there's always a reason for their presence in any given context; they're not just flavoring to be sprinkled over a word.)

* My primary concern is that of earthquakes.

Where the speaker meant to say that their primary concern is earthquakes themselves; but that's not what "that of earthquakes" means.

Here's one possible way to test whether you've incorrectly put "that of" in a sentence that has the structure "My A is that of B":

1. Replace "that of" with "the A of". (* "My primary concern is the concern of earthquakes.") Or replace "that of B" with "the same A as B's". (* "My primary concern is the same concern as earthquakes's.")
2. If the sentence doesn't read smoothly, then you've probably misused "that of."

The problem with the above test is that there are some borderline-inappropriate uses that pass the test:

* My subject tonight is that of grammar.

* The company's core business is that of computer graphics.

In both cases, you could argue that the sentence is correct, and both cases sort of pass my above test: "My subject tonight is the subject of grammar"; "The company's core business is the business of computer graphics." But in both cases, the "that of" is redundant.

So here's another test, probably better: just cut "that of" from the sentence, and see if the sentence still makes sense; if it does, then you were probably misusing "that of."

I think there's a subject/object confusion at the heart of the misuse; in the standard use of "that of," the B in the phrase "that of B" is a person or organization that owns (or to which can be attributed) the thing named by A.

Here's an example of how to use "that of" correctly:

His premise was that of Newton: that matter and energy are distinct.

In other words, his premise was the same as Newton's premise.

I imagine this is yet another case where my prescriptivist side will have to learn to live with the new phrasing; I suspect it's becoming more widespread over time. But it bugs me.

Of course, for all I know, the usage I'm objecting to has been around longer than I have; I don't currently have any easy way to check on that. If any of you know, let me know.

(Wrote this back in March, but neglected to post it.)

Presumably it meant "Virginia" instead of "Obama."

This may be fixed by the time you see this entry, but I was amused enough to post about it anyway.

Two lifelong plutonic friends, strapped for cash and in debt, decide to make a porno.

--from the page for Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Yes, that's meant to be "platonic." But I sorta like the idea of plutonic friends.

The most common example of this that I see is "Social," short for "Social Security number." As in, "What's your Social?" An abbreviation that includes the words "Security" or "Number" seems like it would make a lot more sense.

I've also heard "Microsoft" for "Microsoft Word." As in, "I wrote it in Microsoft" or "I fired up Microsoft and wrote a letter."

And "Internet" for "Internet Explorer," though that's arguably a different kind of thing; lots of people don't really understand the concept of a web browser.

Another common one: "wiki" for "Wikipedia." Again arguably a different kind of thing; many people don't know what a wiki is, and aren't aware that there are others.

It also seems to me that the "-gate" suffix, meaning "scandal," is somehow related, though that connection may just be in my head. But it does share the idea of extracting part of a term ("Watergate") and using it as shorthand for a much larger meaning.

I suppose these are all more or less synecdoche. One could argue that "society" for "high society" and "the throne" for "the king/queen" are just as strange; they've just been around long enough to be commonly accepted.

Still, my gut feeling is that there's something more/different going on here than just garden-variety synecdoche.

Aside: I immediately assumed that the title was a reference to George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" monologue, also known as "Seven Dirty Words," and sometimes misquoted as "Seven Deadly Words." Turns out I'm not the only one who associates the phrase "seven deadly words" with Carlin; as of this writing, if you Google the phrase (in quotation marks), a Carlin monologue is the first result. At any rate, whether or not Harris meant to refer to the Carlin monologue, his "seven deadly words" are kind of the opposite: they're words that he sees as overused.

And I'm puzzled by almost all of the ones that he and his readers list, because they pretty much all seem perfectly reasonable to me. Perhaps it's just that I don't read very many book reviews?

I may be a little defensive about this, too, 'cause several of the words (such as "compelling" and "intriguing") are words I use all the time.

Anyway, mixed in with the distaste for certain words being used too often, I detect what I think is a certain attitude toward writing in general. Harris starts it off by quoting Wilson Follett (author of Modern American Usage: A Guide and other books) as saying "The best critics [...] are those who use the plainest words[....]" A commenter refers to a word as being "a product of laziness and lack of imagination"; another refers to "great deal of sloppy, lazy writing going on"; another quotes The Elements of Style as referring to critics using words "whose only virtue is that they are exceptionally nimble and can escape from the garden of meaning"; another says reviewers should use more "language every person can relate to."

All of which makes we think that perhaps what's really going on is a complaint about use of words that the objectors see as hifalutin. Reviews, the argument would appear to go, should be written in plain language so that plain-speakin' plain ol' folks can understand 'em.

Which I totally disagree with. I'm not saying book reviews should be hard to understand, but to me, nearly all of the words these folks are complaining about are pretty ordinary words that have pretty ordinary meanings. Is "readable" really meaningless? Are metaphorical descriptions, like "luminous," really so awful? Is the use of the word "smart" to describe a book really so cryptic? They don't seem so to me.

(The one criticism in the list (of those I read) that does seem useful and interesting to me is the idea that male reviewers often refer to a particular feminist poet's work as "engaging"; that sounds to me like potentially the same kind of politically problematic attempted praise as referring to an African-American as "articulate." On the other hand, there are plenty of other contexts where "engaging" is perfectly good praise.)

I suppose part of my reaction is that I have a poor ear for cliches. There are several phrases that I use regularly and see nothing wrong with but that critique groups have told me are cliches to be (yes) eschewed. So maybe overuse just doesn't bother me; maybe I'm deaf to that (um) nuance of language and usage.

And, of course, lists of pet peeves don't have to be rational.

Speaking of rational, I have to object to the other part of the quote from Follett: "[...] and who make their taste rational by describing actions rather than by reporting or imputing feelings." Really? Reviewers are supposed to have rational tastes, having nothing to do with their feelings? I apparently don't live in the same world of reviewers as Follett and Harris; I often rather like learning about a reviewer's feelings about a work.