This week we’ll get a little punny, which, of course, means we’re taking a look at puns. Some people love them and some people hate them. Alexander Pope defended puns, saying “they speak twice as much by being split.” The terribly clever Dorothy Parker called them “recreational linguistics.” (I think she meant that as a […]

“The only valid censorship is the right of people not to listen.” — Tommy Smothers Even with much weightier matters grabbing the headlines these days, the issue of censorship pops up regularly in the way of redactions, retractions, warning labels or an attempted book banning. While the objective of censorship is to curtail the dissemination […]

Does your vehicle have a motor or does it have an engine? If it’s a hybrid, it has both — but which one is which? This pointless debate, which sometimes pops up in automotive magazines, is a perfect example of what we’ll be looking at today: Everyday things that we call by two (or sometimes […]

“If you can’t annoy somebody,” asserted Kingsley Amis, “there’s little point in writing.” Well that’s one good reason for putting words to paper (or computer), but what are some of the other reasons that keep scribes turning out reams of poetry and prose — and how do they feel about it? To find out, we’ll […]

Please note the following notice from the department of redundancy department: “This office will not tolerate redundancy in this office. Thank you for noticing this notice, your noting it will be noted.” “Why?” you wonder. “I’m not a user of redundancies. I don’t repeat myself myself.” That’s OK. I’m here to point out the pitfalls […]

It had been a long day at the job site. After he dragged the last of the old linoleum down the broken escalator, and threw it into the dumpster (that, for some reason, reeked of kerosene), Bill sat down and took a couple aspirin with the last swallow of water from his dented thermos. All […]

Remember when you were a kid and couldn’t wait for Saturday morning to get here so you could sit in front of the TV, happily eating a bowl of Fruit Loops while watching Loony Toons or The Flinstones? Of course you do. Uh, well actually you weren’t. What you were doing was eating Froot Loops […]

Want to see something strange? Read on and I’ll show it to you — and then I’ll show you something even stranger, I promise. A while back this newspaper ran a photo of a man who was considering naming his new cat Taco, and I’d bet you a nickle that he was well aware of […]

Think you’re a good speller? Could you write “On Wednesday February twelfth I’ll definitely learn the judgment of my foreign amateur status” without resorting to spellcheck, or to that little rhyme about vowels, or even (gasp) the dictionary? I don’t think I could. Even the good people at Merriam-Webster sometimes throw in the towel when […]