Hot mess
Emily Brewster of Merriam-Webster explains.
Usage tip of the day
On “owning it.”
Word of the day: sympathist
I know what prompted me to choose the word sympathist to describe my regard for the Chicago Cubs.
Baseball and silence
I know very little about baseball, but it seems to me that the game invites contemplation — watching and waiting and thinking. Joe Buck and company, but especially Buck, sucked all the silence out of the game.
Usage tip of the day
From Leddy’s Imaginary Dictionary of Usage (2016).
Usage tip of the day
The entry for “nice”: from Leddy’s Imaginary Dictionary of Usage (2016).
Word of the day: ambisinistrous
Joe Gould describes himself.
Words, words, words
Build Your Vocabulary (Coronet Instructional Films, 1948).
FOHN
A crossword word. I know it because it makes a memorable appearance in John Ashbery and James Schuyler’s novel A Nest of Ninnies (1969).
Word of the day: eclogue
Shepherds in eclogues don’t clear much brush. They talk and sing — much more fun.
Word of the Day: loll
Had I known about today’s word earlier in the day, I perhaps wouldn’t have been as willing to spend much of the day clearing brush from the edge of our property (with Elaine).
Dr. Watson’s prose, however
The stuffiness of “however” suits him.
Word of the day: spatula
I will never look at a thin flexible dull-edged usu. metal implement in the same way.
Something phishy
About e-mail, expletive infixation, and my deep and unerasable misgivings about voting for Hillary Clinton.
Word of the day: any road
“The next song we’d like to sing is our latest record, or our latest electronic noise, depending on whose side you’re on. Any road, we’d like to carry on with it.”
Word of the day: wayzgoose
“August 24” means something.
Nancy snag
A Nancy-verse snag.
Word of the day: snag
Go out walking in nature preserve. Spot new specimen: snag . The Oxford English Dictionary explains.
WSJ vulgarity
The Wall Street Journal now allows the printing of vulgarities. The New York Times should follow suit.
From Lucy Gayheart
A trade-last.
A PBS qua
Heard this evening on the PBS NewsHour , a reference to David Petraeus sharing classified information with “his mistress qua biographer.”
Word of the day: tarmac
The word is in the air. But where does it come from?
Recently updated
Now there’s misinflammation.
Imaginary word of the day: misinflame
The word came to me in a dream last night, as part of a headline I cannot remember
The passing show
Coined by Alexander Pope.
If and whether
From Sir Ernest Gowers.
The New Yorker that and which
Mary Norris’s explanation of The New Yorker approach to that and which is likely, I think, to leave many viewers confused.
An endless, roiling sea
Roil, in all forms, a vogue word.
Alecry
“The rehearsal in imagination or memory of the events of a graduation ceremony.”
Sappho is not pleased
Kinda remarkable that The New York Times can publish a review of a novel entitled Sweetbitter that fails to gloss the title.