Our metaphorist-in-chief, Barack Obama, has apparently been getting a lot of “mileage” out of his latest metaphor, in which he likens the state of the economy to an automobile.

The first time President Barack Obama  used the metaphor at a Democratic fundraiser in April, he spent exactly four sentences on it: “And yet, after driving our economy into the ditch, they decided to stand on the side of the road and watch us while we pulled it out of the ditch,” Obama said at the Los Angeles event for Sen. Barbara Boxer of California. “They asked, ‘Why haven’t you pulled it out fast enough?’ ‘I noticed there’s, like, a little scratch there in the fender. Why didn’t you do something about that?’”

That is a great metaphor. You can see why he makes the big bucks. Enough that his wife can afford to go on great trips to Spain (do you think she ate any paella while she was there? I love paella). It’s easily equal to his other great metaphor, the one about the medical care bill being like planting seeds in a garden, only we don’t know what kind of seeds we planted, so we need to wait and see what comes up.

Actually, it’s a better metaphor, since it reminds people of “Cash for Clunkers,” arguably the president’s greatest accomplishment. [Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar, politics & government
2 Comments »

Sometimes, I wonder what it takes to make the move to the big city, and earn the big bucks as a marketing VP for a major corporation. Do I have what it takes?

Maybe not.
[Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar
No Comments »

Perhaps up until this point I might have said nothing would surprise me. I mean, hell, we live in a crazy world where wild animals are at war with us, earthquakes are moving the Earth’s axis and God can speak to us through the Billboard top 100 chart. But then, on Sunday night what is commonly called Obamacare passed the US House of Representatives.

Currently I’m in Germany. I’m here on business and will be leaving soon. So I found it an apropos setting to write this missive. Being in Germany, you might think I am relatively removed from the fervor (good or bad) over the “historic” moment. Not so. [Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar, politics & government
2 Comments »

I’m interested in the recent flap between Chief Justice John Roberts and the White House over comments that President Obama made at the State of the Union address. In the speech, you’ll recall, Obama criticized the Court’s decision in Citizens United to roll back campaign finance restrictions. Then, last week, a tape was released in which Roberts characterized Obama’s open criticism as indecorous. The New York Times has a roundup of the argument, along with the jabs of several writers who have weighed in — the word “crybaby” comes up frequently.

[Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar, politics & government
1 Comment »

By now, you know that Indiana Senator Evan Bayh is retiring because of excess partisanship, or legislative gridlock, or because he’s “an executive at heart,” or something.

Less noted, but of infinitely greater importance, is the retirement of juvenile uses of Evan Bayh’s surname by poor journalists, tacky aggregators, nattering twits, and everyone else who doesn’t know how to resist an impulse.

[Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar, politics & government
No Comments »

It was an interesting weekend at When Falls the Coliseum. On Saturday, Instapundit.com linked to three of our posts. Not all of our readers will know what this means. I don’t know if all of our writers know what this means. But I know what this means: lots of readers. This weekend, close to 20,000 people visited When Falls the Coliseum — on a weekend, when normally there are fewer visitors to the site than during the week. That might not be a lot of people for a major newspaper or magazine, but for us — a site that has never spent any money on marketing and has volunteer writers — 20,000 is a ton of readers (actually, quite a lot more than a ton, if my math is correct and the people are well-fed). [Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar, politics & government
19 Comments »

I had never heard of Casey Johnson, the heiress to the Johnson & Johnson fortune (nice that we can still say “heiress” without being considered sexist — would be a shame to lose that word like we lost “sculptress” and might some day lose “actress”). I don’t know why Johnson ’s death at 30, untimely though it is, would be reported in the entertainment section of cnn.com. Was she an entertainer? I don’t recall being entertained by her. According to the article, she was engaged to a woman named Tila Tequila, someone who is apparently famous for being Tila Tequila. Maybe that made Johnson an entertainer. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, language & grammar
3 Comments »

In the belief that the end of the year is best celebrated by staring into the implacable face of death, here’s a roundup of 2009’s most egregious overstatements and lame eulogies written about people whose latest error in life was to pass away.

[Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, language & grammar
No Comments »

Every morning, the first post on my blog is titled “Thought for the day.” It is simply a quote I find interesting from a writer (usually, it’s a writer) born on that date. Recently, the one I chose was by Italo Svevo, author of The Confessions of Zeno: “God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.”

This struck me as a magical turn of phrase. [Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar, that's what he said, by Frank Wilson
3 Comments »

The following 10 words and phrases can be added to the previous list of 10. Both lists can be printed out, kept in wallets and purses, taped to the bathroom mirror, and given away as gifts. I like all of my friends and family and would hate to lose anyone. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, language & grammar
1 Comment »

Greetings!  I’ll be covering online hyperbole for WFTC — what it looks like, how it works, how it might be refashioned into more artful statements or smoother arguments.  In a medium prone to unending tantrum, some focus on minimalism might counterbalance the tendency to write as if starved for attention.  And what better way to begin than with a wee exaggeration about a big hyperbole?  Today, Andrew Sullivan wrote a brief post entitled “What Paul Krugman Cannot Say.”

[Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar, politics & government
No Comments »

This piece of hackery is most often heard in business settings, but I’m afraid it has even crept into the hallowed halls of academe, where one is as likely to hear Latin freakery such as sui generis.* [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, language & grammar
No Comments »

This New York Times story caught my eye today because of the the linguistic choices in the headline — “US Agrees to $3 Billion Deal in Indian Trust Suit” — as well as many within the story’s body. Some examples of the latter:

The tentative agreement, reached late Monday between Obama administration negotiators and lawyers for some 300,000 individual American Indians[…]

“This is an historic, positive development for Indian country[…]” said Ken Salazar, the Interior Department secretary[….]

Under the settlement agreement, the government would pay $1.4 billion to compensate the Indians[…]

[Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar, race & culture
3 Comments »

As you might have seen elsewhere and as the New York Post reported, a “prominent Columbia architecture professor punched a female university employee in the face at a Harlem bar during a heated argument about race relations.”

The professor, Lionel McIntyre, is black and the woman he punched is white. Read the Post article for details. Or google Lionel McIntyre. As you can imagine, some bloggers are probably having fun with how much race relations have improved in the age of Obama. Others are surely asking whether the public outcry (is there one?) would be greater if the race roles were reversed — if a white man — a prominent man in a position of respect — had punched a black woman. Some have asked if this should be considered a hate crime. All fodder for bloggy sniping back and forth that we love so much. So have at it if you’d like.

But since the puncher is a professor of architecture and not of English, let those of us who profess to teach writing pay attention to the way words are used. [Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar, race & culture
42 Comments »

Let me put on my editor hat. A little snug, but I think it fits.

The last sentence in the below excerpt from Peter King’s SI.com column today is certainly conversational in tone. It’s one of those sentences that sounds smartly phrased until you actually read it and realize that it’s nonsense:

Underline this and put it in your mental bold print: I’m not saying Orton is as good as Brady or ever will be; what I am saying is that he’s doing for the Broncos in 2009 what Brady did when Drew Bledsoe went down with an injury in 2001. Brady led the Patriots to a Super Bowl win no one saw coming. Can you sit there right now and say Orton might not do the same thing?

Yes, I can sit here right now and say that Orton might not do the same thing. He could do the same thing. And he might do the same thing. But he might not.

Might indicates uncertainty. King doesn’t mean that Orton is certainly going to do what Brady did. Or even that he’s likely to do it. Just that he could, that the signs are there now that he has that ability. In other words, that he might do it, which also means that he might not.

Tags: language & grammar
1 Comment »

On a cnn.com story today about a stuntman, the following appears (for now, at least):

“For an explosion shot in the movie, I was heading right toward a tanker,” he said. “I swerved around (it) and was head on with a remotely controlled ambulance, (which was) on fire. If I had fallen and it would of hit me, I would have been bone dead.”

This was probably not written by the stuntman, Monte Perlin. He probably spoke these words. And what he said was “would’ve hit me.” But a professional journalist wrote it as “would of.” And no professional journalist editor caught the error. Of course, “would’ve” means “would have,” which is what Perlin is saying. “Would of” means nothing. We’re not professional journalists. If we were, we would of made the same mistake.

Tags: language & grammar
1 Comment »

Oh great. It wasn’t bad enough that every hack headline writer forced to slap a four-word précis on an article they didn’t understand has been using this bromide to bludgeon creativity into a senseless mess for years, now some kind of institution that claims to have expertise about language has elevated this linguistic turd by declaring it the one-millionth word in the English language. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, language & grammar
1 Comment »

Dude, dude, DUDE, dood, duude…

It sounds ridiculous but the word “dude” is a significant part of my social identity. Dude defines me by generation, possibly social class, and almost certainly my suburban upbringing. [Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar
1 Comment »

National Review has published my new story, “Big Switch.” It’s a simple tale of how linguislation turned America downside-up and saved us all.

Tags: language & grammar, money
1 Comment »

“The offensive line is literally decimated by injury,” the sportscaster says, and no one bats an eye. At the water cooler the next day, a few guys talking about the game lament the injured state of the hometown team. “Their offensive line is literally decimated by injury,” one of them says, and they all shake their heads, agreeing with this grim assessment. Quietly, but not literally, the English language slumps against the water cooler and right there dies a slow death. [Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar
3 Comments »

Sunday I am in the TKTS line on Broadway for half price tickets and a young man is hawking Blithe Spirit starring “the legendary Angela Lansbury.”  He seems like a nice young man and Angela Lansbury is a famous actress, but she is not legendary.  Now, if the Gryphon or the Pushmi-Pullyu were in the play, then the word “legendary” would be appropriate.

Come to think of it, I would enjoy seeing the Pushmi-Pullyu in the Angela Lansbury role.

Tags: art & entertainment, language & grammar
1 Comment »

1. Fled on foot
Example Usage: After ditching the car, the suspect fled on foot across a crowded playground.
Complaint: He didn’t flee in a hot air balloon, it was on his feet!
Annoyance Value: 5

2. Literally
Example Usage: When JumJums died, I literally cried for three weeks, my heart broke in two, literally, broke in two.
Complaint: Everyone knows someone who abuses this word in every story and description. Stop! I’m not alone on this one.
AV: 9

3. Apropos
Example Usage: I see you’re eating a Jeno’s frozen pizza. That’s very apropos considering March is National Frozen Food Month.
Complaint: What, you’re too good for the word appropriate? Apropos’ silent s isn’t nearly as cool as the silent g in paradigm, even if March is Frozen Food Month or National Peanut Month or whatever.
AV: 8 [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, language & grammar
13 Comments »

A few weeks ago, my six-year-old son came home from school and asked me, “Daddy, what does ’shit’ mean?” 

My wife and I don’t curse around him, don’t even slip once in a while. Maybe ’crap’ is the worst he’s heard from us. It isn’t that we’re language prudes. (Hell, my novel Mean Martin Manning is full of ‘fucks’ and lots more good stuff.) It’s just that my wife and I think that kids grow up and lose their innocence fast enough as it is. We don’t want to make it any faster. So while we don’t want to shelter the kid, either — and we don’t — we remember that he’s a young child and don’t launch into Chris Rock routines around him. There’s plenty of time for him to be exposed to all the unavoidable crudeness in the world. We think it’s reasonable not to rush it.

But other people have different ideas of what reasonable is, or are less aware of what they’re saying when there are children around. We know parents who curse around their kids like they’re at a bar. Worse, since some bars would kick you out for that kind of talk. And some people aren’t parents, or are parents of older children and no longer watch what they say at all, if they ever did. I had to bring my son to a meeting last summer with a couple of colleagues, one of whom managed to say ‘fuck’ three times. Each time, she was like, “oops, sorry.” Fortunately, my son, then five, was absorbed with his coloring or was wearing headphones and watching a DVD. My sister-in-law blurted out ’shit’ once or twice in front of my son. “What did she say?” he asked. [Read more →]

Tags: family & parenting, language & grammar
4 Comments »

Words are sounds, and as such may mean something besides what they denote. Azure, indigo, ultramarine are more than blue. They echo, somehow, the sound of the infinite.

Not surprisingly, those who are fond of poetry — and poets themselves, of course — seem peculiarly sensitive to words as sounds. One Saturday night, when I was in my early teens, I read all of the poems of Edgar Allan Poe. During the night I found myself waking up with snatches of his poems still running through my head, and the next morning there were some I just couldn’t get out of my  mind — the way it is when you keep hearing a tune over and over.

This was especially true of “Romance.” Certain phrases from it — “a painted paroquet … eternal condor years … trembled with the strings” — just wouldn’t go away. And it was the sound of them, not the sense — after all, what exactly are “eternal condor years”? — that enthralled me. Earlier, nursery rhymes had had the same effect. “Hey, diddle, the cat and the fiddle …” — I could repeat that one to myself endlessly. There is a phrase from Keats’s  “Ode to a Nightingale” — “O for a draught of vintage!” — that from the first time I read it to this very day casts a magic spell over me, transporting me simply by its melody and rhythm to a sunny day in a sunny clime in a time of romance.

W.H. Auden says somewhere that certain lines of poetry transcend language, that you don’t have to know the language or what the words mean in order to know immediately that they are poetry. [Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar, that's what he said, by Frank Wilson
3 Comments »

I came across this post and had to share. PunIntended.com has a list up of seven towns with bizarre names. My big question — would you move to a place called Boogertown?  Some of my favorites:

1. Ding Dong, Texas

2. Boogertown, North Carolina

3. Conception Junction, Missouri

4. Satan’s Kingdom, Vermont

There is one road in my town called Stoner Avenue. I’d rather my kids grow up on the next block, assuming the house of my dreams isn’t over on Stoner.

Ever come across any strange streets or town names? Would love to hear them.

Tags: ends & odd, language & grammar
5 Comments »

Let’s begin with what may well be the most awkward line of supposedly realistic written dialogue, ever, in any published book from any legitimate publisher:

“The lecture I had from my boss sure tightened my sphincters!”

I’m not going to name the book or the author because it wouldn’t be kind: The book in question is a practical guide to pain relief, not a novel or work of literary non-fiction, and the author is a compassionate professional healer, not a battle-hardened professional writer. 

So why cite this bizarre bit of dialogue, which sounds like it was badly translated from Hungarian into Esperanto into Turkish into English, at all?  Because it’s one of a series of equally ponderous “common expressions,” along the lines of “I’m experiencing such unusually high levels of stress these days it could very well be that my head is likely to explode!”, that the book lists as examples of how our words and our thoughts not only express, but actually affect, how we feel physically. 

(Incidentally, I say “along the lines of” because I didn’t actually buy the book, and the only line I jotted down verbatim, as I sat in a Barnes & Noble flipping through it, was the one about “sphincters,”  and then only because it was so unintentionally funny.  I mention this — and, specifically, the fact that I was sitting rather than standing — for reasons that will become clear in a moment.)

In any event, according to the book, if we say “she’s a pain in the neck” often enough, sure enough we’ll soon get a pain in the neck, which in turn will lead to chronic headaches. 

But how this theory applies to chronic knee pain, for example — to the best of my knowledge, there any no common expressions to the effect of, “the busy traffic flow in this morning’s rush hour is really causing my kneecaps to ache” — isn’t at all clear. [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, language & grammar
4 Comments »

Here, taken verbatim from an obituary in the Chicago Sun-Times, is the amazing story of a woman who succumbed in old age to a terrible disease, then by some mysterious agency was given a second chance at life, and took full advantage of it by enjoying another 79 years:   

“Born June 18, 1929 after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, departed this life on Saturday, November 7, 2008.”

Good karma?  Nah, bad comma.

Tags: language & grammar, trusted media & news
6 Comments »

With three words, with three fuckin’ words, Chase Utley became a Philadelphian. He uttered the unspeakable that spoke for us all. “World fuckin’ Champions.” He said it on live TV in front of — oh, I don’t know, a billion people? — and he said it as deliberately and magnificently as his fellow Californicatin’ Phillie said it. At the victory celebration in 1980 at JFK Stadium at the end of the biggest parade in this city that anyone had ever seen, Tug McGraw shouted, “New York can take this World Championship and stick it!” And we cheered each of them immediately — Tug and Chase — passionately and forever. Their blood has become our blood.

Utley spoke for us all when he dropped the F bomb to describe the indescribable, a feeling that comes once in a lifetime. Twice if you chose the right century to be born. World fuckin’ champions. God, that feels good. All the local stations were running live feeds of the victory ceremony at Citizens Bank Park when Utley dropped the big one, and you could actually hear NBC10 anchor Tim Lake laugh before coming on the air to apologize for the profanity that just went out over the airwaves. Perhaps the most unnecessary and insincere apology ever uttered.

What is it about Philadelphia that brings out the rude and inappropriate? Could it be about coming from a city that speaks its mind? Fuck you, King George. Bring on your lobsterback army. Fuck you New York. Bring on your money. Fuck you Washington. Bring on your power. Fuck you L.A. Bring on your Hollywood fame. And while you’re at it, fuck you in general. I’m from fuckin’ Philadelphia. The one thing I cannot stand, the one thing that drives me crazy, is to be looked down upon. Why? Because I’m from Philadelphia, you jit.

I’m from Phila-fuckin’-del-phia. I don’t have to explain my city to you. I can barely explain it to myself. But I carry in my genetic code a pride you cannot imagine. I’m from the City of Brotherly Love where we will beat your ass as happily as opening Christmas presents. Try us. I’m from Philadelphia. And so is Chase Utley

Tags: language & grammar, sports
1 Comment »

The best typo I have ever seen in my line of work was “[a] coyote’s plaintiff whaling.” But the book I’m cleaning up now — without naming any names or titles or major publishers — has some pretty good ones.

[After tipping a cauldron of boiling tar over the enemy,] “he turned away from the sight of the massive pile of writing flaming demons…”

[The Dwarf King] “patted the legendary harmer at his side.”

“With the death of the Queen’s closets advisor since the time of her father…”

On the scale of one to plaintiff whaling, I’d give these 7, 8, and 9, respectively.

Tags: all work, language & grammar
1 Comment »

Ok, I couldn’t leave this one alone.

As reported on cnn.com, a McCain aide says Sarah Palin is “going rogue.”

Is that really a surprise? I mean, come on, people, she’s a maverick.

Wikipedia says: A maverick is a person who thinks independently; a lone dissenter; a non-conformist or rebel; it can also mean an unbranded range animal, especially a motherless calf.

My F12 popup dictionary widget says a rogue is primarily “a dishonest or unprincipled man,” but its 2nd ranking definition is “a person whose behavior one disapproves of but who is nonetheless likable or attractive (often used as a playful term of reproof): Cenzo, you old rogue!” [Read more →]

Tags: language & grammar, politics & government
1 Comment »