Violent rhetoric
Every so often, friends of mine express outrage about the violent rhetoric and metaphors used by (for example) politicians. And I agree that there's a lot of violent rhetoric and...
A slash by any other name
A couple of days ago, I wrote about abbreviations containing slashes; researching that reminded me to mention that there are a couple of different names for slashes, and a couple...
Two-letter abbreviations with slashes
In English, most of our two-letter abbreviations are written as either two letters by themselves, or two letters with one or two periods. But there are a few that are...
Nothing Like a Dame
Was just listening to bits of South Pacific, looking for duets (at Jacob's suggestion), and came across this excellent couplet from the song “There Is Nothing Like a Dame”: Lots...
Emotive conjugations
In 1948, Bertrand Russell, on a radio program called The Brains Trust, gave a joke example of an irregular verb conjugation: I am firm; you are obstinate; he is a...
time gun
Sadly, a time gun isn't what I, as a science fiction fan, initially thought it was. However, it is nonetheless kinda cool. A time gun is apparently a cannon or...
scrummy
Apparently “scrummy” is a portmanteau of scrumptious and yummy. I had initially assumed it must mean something like “scummy.”...
Commas, multiple
The following sentence contains a comma after every word: Ahead, Edmund, inevitably, lurked. I'm not saying it's a good sentence, but I believe it to be grammatical. So what's the...
Dual-interpretation sketches
Vardibidian recently pointed to a Ronnie Corbett sketch involving double meanings of terms like “Blackberry.” I enjoyed the sketch; fun verbal comedy. And I was pleased, because I often see...
Happy Days
For my entire life, I've been hearing the Happy Days theme song and wondering why it contains the weird line “These days are all / Filled in with glee.” Though...