Archive for 2: Uppercase 1
Ranjit writes that a road rally he was once in included the clue "Turn right at Sleeping Crimson." He explains: "Turned out to be a movie theater showing While You Were Sleeping and Crimson Tide. I never saw those movies, but the mysteriously evocative phrase 'sleeping crimson' has stuck with me ever since. I considered […]
When I was in high school, doing backstage work for the theatre department, one of my occasional responsibilities was to put announcements (of theatrical presentations, sports events, and so on) on the marquee-style sign out by the road. Unfortunately, we had a limited set of letters to use, and every so often we would need […]
It turned out that the one Web page which contained all of the information I needed for this column was inaccessible right when I needed it. So I've done something I've never done before: modified the column after it had been up for a couple days. I considered just noting the differences/changes on this page, […]
Pennsylvania's license plates used to say "You have a Friend in" at the top, and "Pennsylvania" at the bottom, with the license number in between. Some enterprising group or company capitalized on this design by printing up fake Pennsylvania vanity license plates on which the license-number area read "JESUS," so that if you ignored the […]
Dominus points out that this game is commonly known as "Geography." Though he's right, I have to say I still prefer "Gallivanting." He goes on to provide evidence that word games can be of use to mathematicians and computer scientists: I can't find my references, but computer scientists have demonstrated that the `generalized' version of […]
There's a word game in which players take turns saying the names of countries; each name must start with the final letter of the previous name. No repetitions of names are allowed. I'm sure this game has a name, but since I don't know it, I'll call it "Gallivanting." The problem with Gallivanting under those […]
I recently encountered the phrase "feint of heart" (though it was again unclear whether this was simply a typo). Randy Dittberner writes that for years he's been keeping track of grammatical errors he hears people make, and provides a sample: run "a monk" (instead of "amok") the "physical" year (instead of "fiscal"—this one is quite […]
I've got my prescriptivist hat on this week. Although I'm fully aware that language changes over time, and that linguistically speaking an utterance is grammatical if a linguistically naive native speaker says it's grammatical, I grew up with a strong grounding in correctness of language—correct speech and correct writing. And sometimes that background shows itself […]
Another one I came up with: Call Collectromagnetism. "Will you accept the charges?" (Last updated: 13 September 1997) Back to column I
When the '90s began, some people were quick to come up with new paradigms for the new decade... New Crossbred Isms for the '90s by Ranjit Bhatnagar (8/21/90) Blaspheminism. "Take the patriarchy and stuff it up your Messiah." Antisocialism. "The heart of the Nation is the worker who works alone." Intercommunism. "The proletariat shall not […]