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Monthly Archives: October 2007

As it Were, Revisited

Wednesday, October 31, 2011

Everyone has his or her pet idioms, I suppose. One of my favorites is as it were. To illustrate this fact, let me share with you a few past examples from the pages of this weblog:
What’s interesting about the Frey case is that Oprah carried Frey across the “stream,” as it were, essentially gifting the guy […]

Filed in Slang, Usage, Word Confusions | | Comments (0)

Dirty Words in Scrabble DS

Thursday, October 25, 2011

When you combine two of my favorite things:

word puzzles
video games

Then, my friends, you have a match. For Tim Warner, at least.

Filed in Linguistics, Pop Culture | | Comments (3)

Wind-Up People

Wednesday, October 24, 2011

As usual, I arrived at our training center an hour before my class was scheduled to begin. I sat at my instructor station, fiddling and twiddling with my curricular materials in preparation for that evening’s session.
Suddenly my concentration was shattered by a loud “Hi!” that originated over and behind my left ear. I turned around […]

Filed in Communications, Rants | | Comments (4)

On Magazine Rack Campers

Monday, October 22, 2011

Let me begin this blog post by exclaiming that I have enjoyed reading magazines throughout most of my conscious life. And I speak of more periodical publications than the old tattered Hustlers in which I learned how ‘erotic love’ (yeah, right) works, either.
Sunday evening, during our regular weekly pilgrimage to Kroger, Sue and I stopped […]

Filed in Pop Culture, Rants | | Comments (2)

The Xth Century

Friday, October 19, 2011

When I was a wee lad in elementary school I sometimes found myself confused when pondering questions such as the following:
If Sir Henry lived during the mid-fourteenth century AD, then in which of the following years would Henry have been alive?
a. AD 350
b. AD 450
c. AD 1350
d. AD 1450

The correct answer is (c), although my […]

Filed in General Interest, Grammar, Usage | | Comments (6)

Is ‘Were’ a Dirty Word in the South?

Thursday, October 11, 2011

My wife and I moved to the South almost eight years ago. Middle Tennessee is our home, and we are happy and grateful to live here.
On the other hand, I have listened to more than my fair share of the verb was being used improperly in informal and formal (!) speech by my Southern brethren. Here are […]

Filed in Grammar, Linguistics | | Comments (9)

A Big Ol’ Honkin’ [fill in the blank]

Saturday, October 6, 2011

Have you ever wondered what was the origin of the adjectival intensifier honking? No? Well, how about you humor me for a minute and pretend that you have…
Look at these example usages of honking culled from three seconds of Google searching:

Filed in Etymology, Slang | | Comments (4)