A site to help make English grammar more understandable without dumbing down either its significance or its usage.
English is mostly a Germanic language with some French thrown in owing to the Norman (French) Conquest of England, so it’s a great time to revive and revel in a German word not used that often but particularly a propos this year–schadenfreude. Roughly translated, schadenfreude means "joy over other people’s suffering and losses." With the circle of [...]
I remember back in high school being excoriated by an English teacher who said, in effect, "You can’t say a myriad of. Myriad is an adjective." So, blindly, I believed that for the next several decades until…today. I finally looked it up. Turns out myriad started out as a noun meaning "innumerable" or literally "10,000" (once [...]
My day gig these days has me doing research on labor law and employment issues, and today I came across a nonprofit hospital posting from North Carolina, which announced that new acronyms were being added to hospital jargon during our current economic difficulties. The author mentioned two: PIK, or payment in kind, which refers to [...]
Following yesterday’s post about phrases, I guess I should’ve looked up "calling a spade a spade" before using it, but I think it conveys what I want. The subject is the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai and the PC foxtrot that most of the media used to report about it. Fearful of linking the murderous [...]
I saw a blog title today using the phrase above, annus horribilis (which the writer mispelled by using two l’s), and I had to go look it up. Not even I know everything. LOL To my rescue came a handy site named Phrase Finder. Turns out that annus horribilis is annus mirabilis–"year of miracles"–turned on [...]
Found at EngrishFunny.com (among other pictures, so check them out):
I stumbled upon a Web effort by MSN today to discover and name the "11 Lamest Blogs." I was actually hoping to be named on the list, so I could get some zillions of vistors. Alas, I didn’t make it, but you all know how lame I am. LOL. Someone whom Donald Trump detests (me too!) [...]