Merrill Perlman settles a dispute between a sportswriter and his editor about whether the word "fraught" needs to take a preposition.
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I overheard this in Galway recently, and it prompted me to write a few notes on the word thick as it is used in Ireland. Continue reading..."I don't care how thick he gets, I'm not inviting him!"
Last week we heard from Mike Pope, a technical writer and editor at Microsoft, about how mathematical terms evolve in common usage. Now Mike introduces us to some unusual jargon in the computer programming community.
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The editors of The Associated Press Stylebook recently announced some changes to the Bible of copy editors. Among their pronouncements: e-mail would lose its hyphen, and cell phone would lose its space. Merrill Perlman, who writes the "Language Corner" column for Columbia Journalism Review, gives us the full rundown.
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This is a strange expression, often heard in the form: “You’ll be laughing on the other side of your face [when X happens].” But what does it mean and where does it come from?
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Have you noticed that curators, once restricted to institutions like museums and art galleries, are now running rampant? Research librarian Stan Friedman investigates curator-mania, and discovers that people are finding comfort in an old, trusted term.
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We welcome back Merrill Perlman, who writes the "Language Corner" column for Columbia Journalism Review. Here she considers how "scapegoat" gets turned into "escape goat" — an error that actually has an etymological basis.
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