Tag Archives: words

Alpha

Posted on September 28, 2018 by Robert Basil

The end is the beginning.

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Update needed

Posted on February 6, 2017 by Robert Basil

I had long been puzzled by how many people don’t get the saying “That’s the exception that proves the rule.” This morning it occurred to me that the opacity is not in the minds of my friends but in the phrase’s … Continue reading →

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Ricotta / Ree-goat

Posted on November 7, 2015 by Robert Basil

In Fairport, New York, where I grew up, there were lots of Italian American families, and I had many Italian American friends (still do). I married an Italian American from Liverpool, New York, and have a son from this marriage … Continue reading →

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Accent-removal class

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Robert Basil

Notes Mark Liberman at Language Log: “In a better world, the speakers of the ‘standard’ variety would take a prejudice elimination class instead.”

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Damned, lying lawyers

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Robert Basil

On Twitter recently I noted that, oddly enough, no word rhymes with doggerel. My friend Jonathan Mayhew tweeted back, “pettifogger hell, though it would rime with doggerel only in doggerel.” I had never even heard the word “pettifogger” before, so … Continue reading →

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The Art of Scolding, cont’d.

Posted on June 8, 2013 by Robert Basil

“We have somehow not successfully received your professional-development documentation,” a Dean’s Office colleague wrote me in an email early in my career at Kwantlen. The sentence both charmed and alarmed me, especially the phrase somehow not successfully received, which seemed … Continue reading →

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On National Grammar Day: A love letter to language

Posted on March 4, 2013 by tierneywisniewski

It’s fitting that I should write this post on National Grammar Day. Choosing and arranging the right words with the right endings in the right order with the right punctuation isn’t even close to the most interesting thing I could … Continue reading →

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