By Allan Metcalf. When I saw an article on Friendsgiving in The Wall Street Journal last week, I knew I had a topic for the day before Thanksgiving: giving words. A long list, that is, of words ending in -giving, like those two. More...
13 décembre 2015
Giving Words
Let’s Call the Whole Thing ‘Often’
By Ben Yagoda. I was listening the other day to “Reply All,” a podcast about the Internet, and P.J. Vogt, the reporter/host, had occasion to say the word often. I was pretty confident that I knew how he was going to pronounce it. More...
Books and Mortar
By Ben Yagoda. A memorable (to me) segment on the old Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was “Share a Little Tea with Goldie,” in which a wide-eyed hippie, played by Leigh French, found various things to say “Oh, wow” about. I have been thinking about one particular episode in which Goldie excitedly demonstrated to viewers an invention she’d come up with. More...
Who That?
By Ben Yagoda. Last week, referring to Ben Carson’s (supposedly) terrible temper, Donald Trump said, “I don’t want a person that’s got a pathological disease.”
What caught my eye was that he didn’t say, “… a person who’s got a pathological disease.” For some years, I have been noticing that my students favor the choice of that over who as a relative pronoun. More...
