Clik here to view.
What if the President Couldn’t Read?
A rumor has been circulating about our new president’s level of literacy. First suggested (I think) in a blog post for The Times of Israel, the notion that the president not only doesn’t like to read...
View ArticleClik here to view.
My New Crush on the Dictionary
I’m hooked. Merriam-Webster is the coolest thing on social media. In these dark times, where clickbait generally leads down a long tunnel into dystopia, the Twitter resurgence of a venerable dictionary...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Enemy of the People Is … (Envelope, Please)
Many of us were startled by the president’s recent labeling of the free press as “the enemy of the American people.” Many felt a line had been crossed. But which line, and what it had to do with this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
X-ing Out Excellence
In a former lifetime I served as director of publications for a small liberal-arts college whose ambitious president wanted to put it on the map. The word he asked me and others to promote in articles,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Thinking in Mayan
I am writing this in Mérida, Mexico, where my husband and I lucked out in avoiding the snowstorm that hit the Northeast this week. We are baking in the Yucatán sunshine and visiting nearby Mayan sites....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Milking a Comma for All It’s Worth
The case of the dairy drivers has captured the world’s attention. From The New York Times to The New Yorker and Language Log, the $10-million award granted (some say) because of a missing comma makes...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Total Tell
I have totally been thinking about this word. No, that’s not true. I have been thinking about many other things: midterm grades, spring allergies, whether to freeze half the massive pot of chili I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Empathy Effect
I am writing this blog post on the last day of National Reading Month, a featured period of time that may become quaint in the years ahead. For now, though, it has comprised several weeks of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The New Clear Option
I’ve heard it so many times my head hurts: the nuclear option. The Republican majority in the U.S. Senate, as we all know, invoked it last week in order to get a vote on Judge Neil Gorsuch, who has now...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mamma Mia!
Last week, the United States dropped its MOAB, or Massive Ordnance Air Blast, on a network of tunnels in Afghanistan, killing approximately 94 people who have been reported thus far as ISIS militants....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Who’s a Patriot Now?
“Je veux être le président des patriotes face à la menace des nationalistes”: “I want to be the president of all patriots against the nationalist threat.” That’s what Emmanuel Macron, the front-runner...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Who Really Said That?
For a time in my 20s, I worked as “assistant to the publisher” at Schocken Books, now part of Random House. Like anyone with that sort of glorified-secretary position, I took on a lot of tasks that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
These Oftentimes Times
My colleague Ben Yagoda predicted it a year and a half ago: Oftentimes is on the rise. I just returned from South Carolina, where I was struck by its ubiquity. A server at a restaurant told me that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pump Priming
I imagine most of us have a story about a time we used a word or an expression that we thought we’d invented, only to discover that it had been around for hundreds of years. In my case, my vivid memory...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Abstaining in Absence
I actually enjoy commencement exercises — the pomp, the circumstance, the grandmothers, the decorated caps, even the speeches. Only one niggling irritation blemishes the day, assuming the day is dry...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clear Skies Acts Abounding
The changes in language, under the current administration, come thick and fast. Even before George Orwell pointed out that “Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rapider Times
On a quick trip to Minneapolis over the weekend, I noticed Southwest Airlines’ slogan, “Is ‘rapider’ a word?” Well, no, I thought. It’s not. That is, you do not find suffixes appended to the adjective...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Story of Grammar
Those of us — poets, fiction writers, literary essayists — who consider our work with language to amount to art often have a strange relationship with discussions of language. It’s hard to find a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hunting Witches
When my kids were small, we used to recite a little ditty about going on a bear hunt. The hunt involved a belief that there was a bear out there, “a big one,” only we couldn’t see it; we had to get...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Good on All of Us
Often I pay attention to a shift in language only when I find it coming from my own mouth. That was the case the other day, when my husband and I were hiking in the Berkshire hills. He caught his toe...
View Article