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Haplologizing the peeververein 12 Aug 2013 | 10:47 pm
Catching up with the well-deserved praise for John McIntyre posted at Barrie England's Caxton blog, I noticed a tiny and (to me) very interesting slip. England wrote: The peeverein should read [McInt...
Garden path to nowhere 5 Aug 2013 | 06:08 am
Today, a Boston Globe headline on a story about an antiques auction truly mystified me. It wasn't your garden-variety garden path sentence, requiring only the the shake of a head to rejigger the inter...
How do youse spell it? 4 Aug 2013 | 07:09 am
Headlining today’s report on the Whitey Bulger trial, my hometown paper went with a defiant quote from Whitey’s affirmation that he would not be testifying: Hmm. I don't know about youse guys, but I'...
"Inure," "enure," and the law 9 Jul 2013 | 01:37 am
Though my family is full of lawyers, I had never heard the legal use of "inure to" until I found myself watching coverage of the George Zimmerman trial the other day, and heard commenters saying thing...
Duct tape/duck tape, one more time 29 Jun 2013 | 08:05 pm
Is it duck tape or duct tape, and which came first? Michael Quinion of World Wide Words has updated his page on the debate, adding new material and antedating the first unequivocal "duct tape" mention...
Riddle me this: a "bullet-ridden" corpse? 29 Jun 2013 | 02:31 am
I got an e-mail yesterday from James Alan Fox, who teaches criminology at Northeastern University (and blogs for the Boston Globe), noting an oddity in the paper's update on Aaron Hernandez, the ex-Pa...
Incent dissents 22 Jun 2013 | 11:50 pm
Speaking (as I was here) of the Times's After Deadline blog, this week's edition also included a delightful plea from a reader whose comment (like many of them) was meant only to record a peeve that h...
Further proof that "lay/laid" is a lost cause 19 Jun 2013 | 11:49 pm
How hard is it to keep lie, lay, laid, lain in their proper places? Let's ask Philip Corbett, the New York Times's standards editor. In yesterday's After Deadline blog, he listed this among the paper'...
Extremely organic: "biodynamic" 17 Jun 2013 | 10:03 pm
Writing in yesterday's New York Times Magazine, Adam Davidson wondered about the nature of the "biodynamic skin creams" on display at this year's Brooklyn Baby Expo. "Is biodynamic a subset of organic...
Fine distinctions: careering, fearing, recollecting 14 Jun 2013 | 10:29 pm
Last week at You Don't Say, John McIntyre responded to one of those true believers who think that so long as they still distinguish between overlapping words -- career and careen were the pair at issu...
