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Tag Archives: words
Album != LP
In the last few weeks, I’ve been corrected several times for using the word “album” to refer to a CD. I’ve been told the usage is outdated and/or inaccurate. So given the chance to do some “obsessive research” as well … Continue reading
Straight from the horse’s mouth (well, almost)
I’ve had a quote in the Quote Server for years, attributed to Louis Armstrong: “All music is folk music. Horses don’t sing.” But recently someone on the folk music list questioned whether Big Bill Broonzy had said it first.
Boots of Royal Leather
The Press Association (the UK version of the AP), in a story about Eric Clapton investing in a historic London men’s clothing store, gave us the historical context: Cordings was the originator of the Covert coat and the Tattersall shirt … Continue reading
It’s the possessive, stupid!
Can someone explain to me how a glaring grammatical error — “there was nothing where it’s face should be” — makes its way from a professional writer with a dozen published novels, to one of the biggest SF magazines in … Continue reading
No Artificial Cows Here!
A new brand of milk has shown up in the local bodega lately, Cream-O-Land. Their label design somewhat resembles the organic milk brands, and proudly proclaims, FROM REAL COWS. As opposed to…?
NY Times redefines “offshore”
In a scare story in today’s New York Times, we’re told that even high-end software jobs are vulnerable to “migrating abroad”: In the debate over high-technology work migrating abroad, there has been widespread agreement on at least one thing: the … Continue reading
No philosophers in the U.S.?
J.K. Rowling has a rather charming web site that she actually seems to be writing herself (one sign that marketing doesn’t control the site is a rare flash of rational web design: a very usable text version of the site). … Continue reading
Speaking of usage errors!
Here’s one I just committed myself: maelstorm. There’s no such word. It’s maelstrom, the name of a whirlpool in Norway, also known as Moskenstraumen, and as the reference points out, brought to us primarily by Jules Verne and Edgar Allen … Continue reading
Further Persnicketing
In support of Silvertide’s language campaign, I’d like to howl for a moment about “uninterested” and “disinterested.” I saw this in yesterday’s New York Times (it’s a quote, so the Times is not necessarily culpable): Fox is completely disinterested in … Continue reading
Don’t Mention the War!
The New York Times yesterday had a hilarious article on Richard Desmond, the publisher of the Daily Express in London, responding to a potential offer by German publisher Axel Springer Verlag’s offer to buy the competing Telegraph. In a meeting … Continue reading