Tag: language
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One Word: Jocular
Are you ever jocular in your use of words? Well, you are, if you ever speak in a joking, humorous, playful manner. Till recently, I divided words and their usages into two categories: formal and colloquial. Formal speech follows the strictest rules and conventions. Itâs conservative, prim, and proper. Colloquial speech is more relaxed. Itâs…
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Tall Oaks From Tiny Eggcorns
Do you use eggcorns in your speech and writing? Donât answer too quickly! Most of us do use eggcorns, at least occasionally. But by their nature, theyâre something we do without being aware of it. Although eggcorns are common, the word isnât. Not yet, anyway. An eggcorn is an expression in which we unknowinglyreplace one…
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One Word: This Here
Always-inquisitive reader Mahin Pouryaghma asks about the compound construction “this here”. It’s one she sometimes encounters in her home stomping ground of rural Georgia. Thanks, Mahin, for affording me a chance to reflect on this and similar expressions. I’m treating this one as a single word for reasons I explained in the article on “compound”.…
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One Word: Disinterested
Disinterested is a word I find most interesting. Not á´É´ĘĘ because itâs so often misused. (Although it is — like âcompriseâ and so many more.) No, âdisinterestedâ fascinates me because it expresses a subtle, absolutely indispensable concept about which we need to think and talk. And because I canât think of any equivalent word we…
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One Word: Worth a Thousand Pictures
Does anyone else feel oppressed by the âtyranny of picturesâ? I do, and Iâm fighting back with a new series of posts about words I love. Words that interest, fascinate, and delight me; words that (for me) carry depths of meaning mere pictures canât duplicate. One article per word — posted á´ĄÉŞá´Ęá´á´á´ á´ÉŞá´á´á´Ęá´s. Hereâs why…
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The So-Called “Islamic State” Is Not “Islam”
It’s bad enough to speak of Muslims as if they all were terrorists. But isn’t it even worse to call terrorists and terrorist organizations “Islam”? Even if they call themselves Islamic. Especially then! Inflammatory references of just this kind are creeping into popular speech. They pop up in unguarded, off-the-cuff comments — the kind that disclose our real thoughts and…