‘To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed,’ the well-known writer once said.

“The three most important things in real estate are: location, location, location.” — Attributed to Lord Harold Samuel Recently I’ve been thinking about maps quite a bit, and as you’ve probably already guessed, specifically about some of the words used on them. So join me as I explore some map words and punctuation, beginning with […]

Even though, like most of us, I speak the American version of English, I probably wouldn’t have much trouble communicating with the local folks were I ever to take a trip to Great Britain. Sure, they have lots of words over there that they spell differently (for instance, as a writer I would hope to […]

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” — Lewis Carroll When we use a word, does it always mean what […]

Recently I wrote a piece about the popularity explosion of crossword puzzles early in the last century. Why, then, did it take two more decades for someone to create a board game about words, and then another two decades before that game finally caught on? Let’s take a look at the game of Scrabble. It […]

We offer you parts of the English language that bring us joy to give you a brief reprieve from the news cycle.

Why should you never interrupt a cruciverbalist? Because you might hear cross words. — Dad joke With the continuing popularity of crossword puzzles among word lovers everywhere, it might be hard to believe that the first one didn’t appear regularly until early in the last century, in the New York World newspaper. Sure, other word […]

Last week we looked at attempts people have made over the years to simplify the spelling of words we use every day. We’ll wrap up the subject beginning with some changes that took place during the Civil War. Well-known lexicographer Noah Webster probably had as many fails as he had wins when it came to […]

“It’s not if you win or lose, but how you spell the words.” — Merriam-Webster.com The English words that most Americans use have evolved over the past 400 or so years, with many of their spellings having changed a little bit — or, in some cases, a whole lot. During our country’s early years, the […]

Want to know what ticks me off? If you ask Mrs. Word Guy, she’ll tell you that a lot of things do, but, if you’ve read even a few of these columns, you already know that what really ticks me off is when people who should know better use the wrong word. No, I don’t expect everyone […]