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Words We Love Too Much
A careful reader pointed out an increasingly common device: modifiers coined by tacking “centric” on to just about every noun in sight. After Deadline http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/words-we-love-too-much-11
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Close but Not Quite
These aren’t the usual homophone missteps — bare for bear, or palate for palette. But in each case we seemed to have mixed up two vaguely similar words. Working too fast? Dictionary shelf too far away? After Deadline
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Interesting video on voice recording
http://sfist.com/2013/09/23/video_the_real_siri_no_really_this.php
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Bright Passages
Now, a brief respite from carping, and another small sampling of sparkling prose from recent editions. After Deadline http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/bright-passages-17/
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Ugly Disagreements
Singular goes with singular, plural with plural. Sounds easy. Yet agreement problems abound in our prose, between subjects and verbs, between nouns and pronouns. The perils are all familiar: phrases intervening between subject and verb that throw us off track; collective nouns that veer from singular to plural; tricky words like “each”; and, of course, […]
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Struggles With ‘Than’
For some reason, comparative constructions with “than” or “as” give us no end of trouble. Probably the most common lapse is using “than” when “as” is called for — for example, “She raised more than three times as much money in the campaign than Mr. Smith.” But there are more arcane stumbles, as well. Look […]