We all believe many things without much evidence. Most cat lovers believe their cats actually know who they are and would notice or care if they were suddenly replaced by other humans who could operate a can opener. Many dog lovers believe their dogs are almost smart enough to understand the family finances. In … More What to Believe
“Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths that have no basis in logic or style, that have been defied by great writers for centuries, and that have been disavowed by every thoughtful usage manual.”–Steven Pinker
Of the following sentences, only three are correct. Can you spot the errors? 1. There was a moment where I thought I might win the game. Everybody, including the players and the fans, were surprised by the easy victory. As a teenager, politics never interested Stephen. Colbart has a bad habit of barging … More Spotting Errors
“Trend-setters are members of upper classes who adopt the styles of lower classes to differentiate themselves from middle classes, who wouldn’t be caught dead in lower-class styles because they’re the ones in danger of being mistaken for them.” ― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works
“People who practice freedom of expression are terrorizing our grammatical way of life.” ― Bauvard
GENDER-NEUTRAL LANGUAGE Anyone who writes these days eventually confronts the issue of gender-neutral language. The trickiest aspect of using gender-neutral language is pronoun/antecedent agreement. The antecedent is simply the word or words a pronoun refers to. Look at these sentences: John loves his dog. (The singular masculine pronoun his refers to its antecedent, the singular … More Gender-Neutral Language
“Before you judge me as some kind of ‘anything goes’ language heathen, let me just say that I’m not against usage standards. I don’t violate them when I want to sound like an educated person, for the same reason I don’t wear a bikini to a funeral when I want to look like a respectful … More Quote of the Day
Many of us are looking for any sign that maybe Harper’s Conservatives are finished. I think I’ve found the definitive sign that the Stephen Harper regime will soon be history. I refer to this headline in the Toronto Star: Conservative who reportedly urinated into coffee cup ‘deeply regrets’ actions The Conservative in question isn’t … More Harper is Finished, or Tempest in a Coffee Cup
“The better you know something, the less you remember about how hard it was to learn. The curse of knowledge is the single best explanation I know of why good people write bad prose.” ― Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century
While I was dropping off to sleep last night, it suddenly came to me that I used a cliché in my blog post about the supposed health benefits of saunas “Sweat Your Way the Radiant Health.” I wrote that the Internet is a “double-edged sword” thus breaking one of George Orwell’s six rules of good … More Clichés
No Harm Spilt 