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Dieresis v. umlaut
Technically speaking, the two dots used in words such as naïve constitute a diacritic called the dieresis or trema; umlaut is a phenomenon particular to vowel changes in Germanic languages, and the identical-looking mark used in some of them to mark these changes.
Posted to Explainer by adoarns on July 11, 2009
Bad Title Grammar
My son is better than I at baseball
Posted to Family by JE Roethel on July 10, 2009
Re: It's " *who'd've* thought"
I have a problem with people inserting an apostrophe for a plural. In most cases, the apostrophe changes the meaning of the word. Language does change, but why make it more laborious? It's easier to omit the apostrophe than to add it, so why do it for a plural? On the other hand, I don't have a problem with using ''hopefully'' as a sentence ...
Posted to Brow Beat by madasipi on June 14, 2009
et alia
(Grammar prelude: I don't know any Latin, but I think when you truncate a list, i.e. beaufort, roquefort, livarot, et al., you don't need a full-stop after the ''et.'') We Americans have always dug the idea that we don't need to get rid of anything if we don't want to. New friends, old friends: silver, gold. Plastic cups, sure, toss 'em, but we ...
Posted to XX Factor by catsinthewell on February 25, 2009
Correction of E. Bazelon & J. Resnik Distortion of US Const.
I am responding to an article by E. Bazelon & J. Resnik, reluctantly. I say reluctantly because I find it disturbing to have to correct a foreigner on their own country's culture, much less politics. The aforementioned individuals made the extraordinary claim that ''Obama should look when he makes his first appointments to the bench''. ...
Posted to Jurisprudence by rgates1 on December 23, 2008
Grammar
I know proper grammar is long gone in America and it won't return, but please fix the dangling participle in your title. It is kind of sad to see this inelegant writing
Posted to Jurisprudence by tongas on December 17, 2008
Re: Chrysler and Cerberus
Sorry, Firefox only checks spelling, not usage, be happy that I said ''its'' and not ''it's''.
Posted to Moneybox by commenter on November 14, 2008
Re: Are the Media?
As I mentioned elsewhere, ''media'' is a plural of ''medium''. NBC is a medium. A newspaper is a medium. My t-shirt is a medium. Together, they are media.
Posted to Five-Ring Circus by bdb on August 12, 2008
tch tch
who I've worked with????
Posted to Reading List by jccamp on June 17, 2008
no offense
I'm a big Saletan fan, so please don't be insulted by this petty aside: From the OED: think, n. 2.b. to have another think coming: to be greatly mistaken. 1937 Amer. Speech XII. 317/1 Several different statements used for the same idea{em}that of some one's making a mistake...[e.g.] you have another think coming. 1942 T. BAILEY Pink Camellia ...
Posted to Human Nature by dankaufman.net on May 30, 2008

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