difference between British English & American English

to us, it sounds like you are saying mathematics 's.

Has anyone near you been saying 'asthmatic' recently?

Many years ago I somehow managed to get accepted by Harvard University into a prestigious fellowship for journalists at mid-career. Twice a week, all 20 of us snots would gather for a question-and-answer session with someone famous. One week we had a special auxiliary guest, an elderly newspaperman we’d never heard of, who turned out to be the oldest surviving fellow from our program. As I recall, he had covered World War I. By the looks of him, he might have also covered the Civil War, sending in his dispatches by Pony Express. His eyes were rheumy. His pants were pulled up to his nipples. His neck wattles had blebs.

Someone asked him if he had any advice for young journalists.


He cleared his throat. We leaned forward, better to catch the wisdom.

“Don’t call ’em stories!” he roared.

Our heads snapped back. Our eyes widened. Huh? Wha?

“They’re articles,” he said. “They’re true. Stories are something you make up!”

That was the entirety of this man’s advice to young journalists. The effort having sapped him of all remaining vigor, he sat back in his chair and fell asleep.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I remembered this episode with some uneasiness the other day when I found myself roaring at a much younger writer about his misuse of the term “the war on terror.” It’s not “terror” that we are warring on, I said, it’s “terrorism.” Terror is not a crime, it is the result of a crime: If I kill you with a bazooka, which I might do if you continue to write “the war on terror,” I am not guilty of “death,” I am guilty of murder.

My young writer friend seemed taken aback. That’s when I remembered the old man and the fellowship. I decided to consult my good friend Pat Myers, a copy editor and the most literate person I know, just to verify that I was on solid ground.

Pat heard me out and had two observations:

1. I am absolutely, unquestionably on solid ground.

2. I am a cantankerous, pedantic, hidebound old geezer.

Pat might have omitted that second point had she not recently read the book “Bad English” by Ammon Shea. In one section, Shea offers a compendium of old rules of English that were once harrumphingly promulgated by cantankerous, pedantic, hidebound old geezers. Here are some:

“Er , the Anglo-Saxon sign of the doer of a thing, is incorrectly affixed to such words as photograph and telegraph, which should give us photographist and telegraphist.” — Richard Grant White, 1882


“ ‘She married a man named Brown,’ is incorrect. ... A woman, when she weds, is married to a man, but the clergyman or magistrate marries her.” — Josephine Turck Baker, 1899

“Moon here means month, so it is incorrect to say, ‘a week’s honeymoon.’ ” — Ambrose Bierce, 1909

“There is no such word as ‘balding.’ Why not ‘baldish’?” — Theodore Bernstein, 1958

“The word ‘store’ for ‘shop’ is grossly incorrect.” — “Etiquette for Americans (by a Woman of Fashion),” 1909

Mistaken: “ ‘You are mistaken.’ For whom? Say, You mistake.” — Ambrose Bierce, 1909

“Date is incorrectly used in the sense of an engagement; as, ‘I have a date this evening,’ instead of ‘I have an engagement this evening.’ ” — Josephine Turck Baker, 1899

Pat’s point was that language evolves, and today’s pedants (cough, cough) will look pretty silly in a few decades. I’m sure she’s right, but if you think that’s going to stop me, you’ve got another think coming. (Note: It is not “another thing coming.”)

Zzzzzzzzz.

Did you know that there is actually a small but growing group of wordies that wish to 2 make the pst tense FORM of the verb "tweet", as "TWAT"

farmerman wrote:

Did you know that there is actually a small but growing group of wordies that wish to 2 make the pst tense FORM of the verb "tweet", as "TWAT"

I am in favor of this development.

No we're not, you are with your bloody TV shows and McDonalds all over the shop