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Richard Nordquist

Grammar & Composition

By Richard Nordquist, About.com Guide

Essays on the Essay

Friday January 7, 2011

"One damned thing after another," is how Aldous Huxley characterized the essay: "a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything."

As definitions of the genre go, Huxley's is no more or less exact than Francis Bacon's "dispersed meditations," Samuel Johnson's "loose sally of the mind," or Edward Hoagland's "greased pig." The essay is a slippery form indeed, one that actively resists any sort of precise, universal definition. (But that doesn't stop us from trying: see What Is an Essay?)

Since Montaigne adopted the term to characterize his "attempts" at self-portrayal, "essay" has been used to describe just about any short piece of nonfiction: an autobiographical ramble, a newspaper editorial, a critical article, a student composition, even an excerpt from a book-length study. And what do these all have in common? As Justin Kaplan observed, "All you can safely say is that [the essay is] not poetry and it's not fiction."

Instead of trying to define the essay, Annie Dillard suggests that we enjoy its mercurial qualities:

The essay is, and has been, all over the map. There's nothing you cannot do with it; no subject matter is forbidden, no structure is proscribed. You get to make up your own structure every time, a structure that arises from the materials and best contains them. The material is the world itself, which, so far, keeps on keeping on.
(Introduction to The Best American Essays 1988, Ticknor & Fields)

Sounds pretty good--until you start thinking about those formulaic five-paragraph themes that students are often required to churn out (in half an hour or less) on an assigned topic for a standardized exam. Let's face it: the world of that sort of essay is depressingly circumscribed.

How refreshing it would be to open an exam booklet one day and read these instructions:

Take the day off to think about something that truly matters to you. Explore your ideas on paper, experiment with different approaches to your topic, and be sure to play with language along the way. Then, after you've had time to reflect on what you've drafted, revise and edit your essay with real readers (not "graders") in mind.
What would be the result of such an assignment? On a good day, maybe some updated versions of what we call Classic Essays.

Essays on the Essay:

Image: Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Our Favorite Quizzicals

Wednesday January 5, 2011

To discourage her students from groaning every time she announced a quiz, the teacher began calling her tests quizzicals. Of course nobody was fooled.

As it happens, some of the most frequently visited pages on this website are quizzicals--matching and multiple-choice quizzes on English usage, spelling, word origins, and figures of speech. In case you've missed any of them, here are the ten most popular quizzes at About Grammar & Composition.

Verbal Hygiene Report: Banished Words for 2011

Monday January 3, 2011

Michigan's smallest public university, Lake Superior State, has released its 36th annual List of Banished Words: 14 supposedly worn-out, misused, unnecessary, and generally annoying words and expressions:

  • viral
  • epic
  • fail
  • wow factor
  • a-ha moment
  • backstory
  • BFF
  • man up
  • refudiate
  • mamma grizzlies
  • the American people
  • I'm just sayin'
  • Facebook and Google as verbs
  • live life to the fullest

Readers who contributed to our list of 200 Words That Ticked You Off in 2010 won't find any big surprises in this latest collection. People remain annoyed by buzzwords, vogue words, malapropisms (or Palinisms), redundancies, and clichés--unless they're in the habit of using the words themselves. And while verbing is an age-old method of coining words, purists are predictably peeved by recent entries like "man up" and "google."

Talk of "banishing" words is silly, of course. Language evolves without much regard for our sense of what's reasonable or correct. But the practice of making judgments about language use is ancient and universal. It's a practice that linguist Deborah Cameron calls verbal hygiene:

Verbal hygiene comes into being whenever people reflect on language in a critical (in the sense of "evaluative") way. The potential for it is latent in every communicative act, and the impulse behind it pervades our habits of thought and behaviour. I have never met anyone who did not subscribe, in one way or the other, to the belief that language can be "right" or "wrong," "good" or "bad," more or less "elegant" or "effective" or "appropriate." Of course, there is massive disagreement about what values to espouse, and how to define them. Yet however people may pick and choose, it is rare to find anyone rejecting altogether the idea that there is some legitimate authority in language. We are all of us closet prescriptivists--or, as I prefer to put it, verbal hygienists.
(Verbal Hygiene. Routledge, 1995)

Even contemporary linguists, typically the most committed advocates of descriptivism, insist on writing in standard English and conforming, as Cameron says, "to every arbitrary convention laid down in the Chicago Manual of Style."

Though we may not share the same pet peeves, it seems we all keep lists of banished words.

More About Attitudes Toward Words:

Image: Verbal Hygiene, by Deborah Cameron (Routledge, 1995)

Language in the News: The Top Ten Stories of 2010

Friday December 31, 2010

You may have noticed that at the end of every month we gather a number of language-related items in the news. Some have significant scholarly implications. Others are downright silly. For this final post of 2010, we've selected ten stories from the past year that continue to stir linguistic interest and debate.

  • Linguistic Evolution: Does Bigger Mean Simpler?
    Psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Memphis have released a new study on linguistic evolution that challenges the prominent hypothesis for why languages differ throughout the world. The study argues that human languages may adapt more like biological organisms than previously thought and that the more common and popular the language, the simpler its construction to facilitate its survival. . . . Read more
    ("Language Structure Is Partly Determined by Social Structure, Says Penn Psychology Study." Penn News at the University of Pennsylvania, January 21, 2010)

  • A New Dictionary of Old English
    The lexicographic work in question is the Dictionary of Old English (DOE), currently being compiled at the University of Toronto. This team of researchers, now led by Antonette diPaolo Healey, is working from a corpus that contains every known piece of Anglo-Saxon text (some three thousand items) and is fully searchable by computer. . . . Read more
    (Ammon Shea, "Violent but Charming." Humanities, January/February 2010)

  • Wired for Language--Any Language
    A recent study provides evidence that all languages, including sign language, are created in the same areas of the brain. The discovery suggests that something about language is universal and doesn't depend on whether people use their voices or their hands to talk. . . . Read more
    (Clara Moskowitz, "Same Brain Spots Handle Sign Language and Speaking." LiveScience, February 26, 2010)

  • The Power of Accents
    Children choose friends based more on whether they speak alike rather than look alike, according to a Harvard University study. . . . While previous research has shown that white children in the United States tend to pick same-race friends, new findings published in the journal Social Cognition suggest that race takes a back seat when foreign or non-native accents come into play. . . . Read more
    (Cristen Conger, "Accent Speaks Louder Than Race for Finding Friends." DiscoveryNews, March 16, 2010)

  • Are Writers Becoming Obsolete?
    Narrative Science, a five-month-old company in Evanston, Ill. that specializes in '"machine-generated content," can make some writing by humans obsolete. "There's no human author and no human editing," says Stuart Frankel, 44, the company's CEO and a former executive at DoubleClick. "But the stories sound really good." . . . Read more
    (Justin Bachman, "Are Sportswriters Really Necessary?" Bloomberg Businessweek, May 3-May 9, 2010)

  • Online Speech Accent Archive
    "Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store . . .." You can hear these words recited 1,300 times at the online Speech Accent Archive at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia--and every one is different. The archive was set up to exhibit "a large set of speech accents from a variety of language backgrounds." . . . Read more
    (David Marsh, "1,300 Ways to Say the Same Thing." The Guardian [UK], June 1, 2010)

  • Misunderstanding English Grammar
    Research into grammar by academics at Northumbria University suggests that a significant proportion of native English speakers are unable to understand some basic sentences. The findings--which undermine the assumption that all speakers have a core ability to use grammatical cues--could have significant implications for education, communication and linguistic theory. . . . Read more
    ("Many English Speakers Cannot Understand Basic Grammar." ScienceDaily, July 6, 2010)

  • Sapir-Whorf Updated: Lost in Translation
    Languages, of course, are human creations, tools we invent and hone to suit our needs. Simply showing that speakers of different languages think differently doesn't tell us whether it's language that shapes thought or the other way around. To demonstrate the causal role of language, what's needed are studies that directly manipulate language and look for effects in cognition. One of the key advances in recent years has been the demonstration of precisely this causal link. . . . Read more
    (Lera Boroditsky, "Lost in Translation." The Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2010)
    See also: "Does Your Language Shape How You Think?" by Guy Deutscher (The New York Times Magazine, August 26, 2010)

  • Make Yourself at Home With Chunking
    In recent decades, the study of language acquisition and instruction has increasingly focused on "chunking": how children learn language not so much on a word-by-word basis but in larger "lexical chunks" or meaningful strings of words that are committed to memory. Chunks may consist of fixed idioms or conventional speech routines, but they can also simply be combinations of words that appear together frequently, in patterns that are known as "collocations." . . . Read more
    (Ben Zimmer, "On Language: Chunking." The New York Times Magazine, September 19, 2010)

  • Is English Doomed to Die?
    In his new book, The Last Lingua Franca (Allen Lane), [Nicholas Ostler] brings a wide-ranging linguistic perspective to bear on the role and future of global English. His provocative conclusion--that English is likely to go the way of Persian, Sanskrit and Latin and, over many hundreds of years, inevitably die out--will bring hope to the French and dismay to many American linguistic patriots. . . . Read more
    (Robert McCrum, "My Bright Idea: English Is on the Up but One Day Will Die Out." The Observer [UK], October 31, 2010)

To keep up with language in the news, be sure to visit this blog at the end of each month. If you'd like a reminder, sign up for our weekly Grammar & Composition Newsletter.

Classic New Year's Essays


Popular Grammar & Composition Posts in 2010

Wednesday December 29, 2010

Unlike yesterday's newspaper, old blogs can't be used to wrap fish or line the bottom of a birdcage, but they can be recycled all the same. Here's a look back at some of the more popular posts on the Grammar & Composition Blog in 2010.

  • Can Writing Be Taught? (January 2010)
    College administrators like to pay lip service to the value of writing ("the edifice on which the rest of education rests," as one official recently put it). Then they demonstrate their commitment to the craft by staffing undergraduate writing classes with some of the least experienced and most poorly paid teachers on campus--graduate teaching assistants and nontenured adjunct faculty. Such cynical behavior brings to mind an old question: Can writing be taught? . . . Read more

  • Dylan Thomas's Love Affair With Words (March 2010)
    Two years before his death in 1953, the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas was asked to explain why, when, and how he first began to write. He replied with customary gusto. As a young child, Thomas said, before he could even read for himself, he "had fallen in love with words." And words were "the most important things, to me, that could be ever." . . . Read more

  • Grammatical Zeros and Bare Relatives (April 2010)
    Funny thing about grammar: it can show up in a sentence even when there's nothing there. . . . A grammatical zero is something like an empty chair at a dinner party where one of the guests has failed to arrive. As long as that chair remains empty (or in grammar, null), we're at least vaguely reminded of the absent character. . . . Read more

  • The Final Figures of Lost (May 2010)
    As fans of the ABC TV series Lost gear up for the final episode, we figured it was time to open the hatch and examine some of the Lost figures of speech we've been collecting over the past six years. . . . Read more

  • Take Those Underpants Off Your Head! (May 2010)
    Since it first popped up in the 14th century, the exclamation point has generally been regarded as the hot-headed punk in the school of punctuation. Favored by advertisers, preteens, and writers of ransom notes, the exclamation point is less a mark of punctuation than an oratorical cue or a typographical shriek--in newspaper slang, a "screamer." . . . Read more

  • What Does "BP" Stand For? (June 2010)
    "BP" stands for . . . nothing. Or rather, BP stands for nothing but itself. In language studies, we call that an orphaned initialism--an abbreviation that's evolved into a brand name independent of its original meaning. . . . Read more

  • Twelve Types of Questions in Casablanca (July 2010)
    To illustrate the various ways that questions can be framed in English, here are 12 memorable exchanges from the classic film Casablanca. . . . Read more

  • Pardon the (Whoops!) Interruption (August 2010)
    It's a playful device favored by bloggers, diarists, and (woo hoo!) the staff writers at Entertainment Weekly. But now--get ready for it--the interrupting phrase is showing up in more formal kinds of writing as well. . . . Read more

  • Figuratively Speaking, What Is Writing Like for You? (October 2010)
    When asked to discuss the experience of writing, authors often respond with figurative comparisons. That's not too surprising. After all, metaphors and similes are the intellectual tools of the serious writer, ways of examining and imagining experiences as well as describing them. . . . Read more

  • The Not-So-Great Apostrophe Debate (November 2010)
    Though the guidelines for using apostrophes seem simple enough, they've been eccentrically applied ever since the mark first appeared in the 1500s. As editor Tom McArthur notes in The Oxford Companion to the English Language, "There was never a golden age in which the rules for the use of the possessive apostrophe in English were clear-cut and known, understood, and followed by most educated people." . . . Read more

  • Words and Phrases That Ticked You Off in 2010 (December 2010)
    At the start of this year (not on the year), we invited you to update our list of Words and Expressions That Tick You Off. Long story short and not gonna lie, you responded with rancor and enthusiasm. Here's what you told us. . . . Read more

  • A TV Guide to Grammar and Usage (December 2010)
    Educational television may be an oxymoron, but that doesn't mean popular TV programs can't be used to illustrate points of grammar and usage. Today's sampler shows that now and then you can learn about language with the television on. . . . Read more

Grammar & Composition Blog Archives:

Look-Alike/Sound-Alike Errors (and How to Avoid Them)

Monday December 27, 2010

For each of the following sentences, try to spot the look-alike/sound-alike error--that is, an inappropriate word that closely resembles the correct one:

  1. Here's some good advise for students who want to find the perfect internship.

  2. No matter what you decide to do during your Alaskan vacation, be sure to start each day with a hardy breakfast.

  3. A principle reason for our slow progress has been the lack of adequate data for use in numerical prediction models.

Did you catch the three mistakes?

In the first sentence, we need to change the verb advise (recommend) to the noun advice (guidance). In number two, let's replace hardy (daring, courageous) with hearty (substantial). And in the third sentence, how about exchanging the noun principle (basic truth or rule) for the adjective principal (most important). (If you're puzzled by this last one, see Why the Principal Is Not Our Pal.)

Even experienced writers can slip up when using similar-sounding words (called homophones). Our spellcheckers will never catch this type of mistake, and our eyes and ears can't always be trusted.

To avoid such errors, we first need to understand the different uses and meanings of homophones. As Mark Twain once said, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

To help you find the right word, we've prepared these guides and quizzes:

More Than Enough Words of the Year

Friday December 24, 2010

Last month, in reporting that the New Oxford American Dictionary had anointed repudiate as its 2010 Word of the Year, we warned that the season of dubious annual honors was upon us. The latest lexicographic stunt is Merriam-Webster's list of the Top 10 Words of the Year:

  1. austerity
  2. pragmatic
  3. moratorium
  4. socialism
  5. bigot
  6. doppelgänger
  7. shellacking
  8. ebullient
  9. dissident
  10. furtive
According to editor Peter Sokolowski, the list is "determined by the volume of user lookups at Merriam-Webster.com in response to current events and conditions." Apparently the event that sparked interest in the German word doppelgänger was a popular TV program, The Vampire Diaries. "Sometimes, that's all it takes," Sokolowski said.

Coincidentally, number nine on the list, dissident, recalls the German Language Society's recent choice for its Wort des Jahres 2010: Wutbürger, or "enraged citizen." The Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache reports that runners-up include Wikileaks, Cyberkrieg (cyber war), and Vuvuzela (that brain-numbing stadium horn heard throughout the World Cup games in South Africa).

Vuvuzela also appears on the shortlist for the OUP UK's 2010 Word of the Year, alongside woot, double-dip, and Tea Party.

Your response to these annual word rankings (which Geoff Nunberg has described as "the cat pictures of the English lexicon") may well be a dismissive whatever--which, for the second year in a row, has topped a Marist poll of the most annoying words and phrases in the English language.

More Words About Words:

O Come All Ye Adherents to Fundamental Tenets of Belief: A Christmas Carol in Bureaucratese

Wednesday December 22, 2010

To illustrate the damage that gobbledygook can cause, Dr. Neil James, executive director of the Plain English Foundation in Australia, composed this weasel-worded rendition of the English hymn "O Come All Ye Faithful":

It would be appreciated if all persons pertaining to belief and not insignificant states of gladfulness would, in the fullness of time, proceed by appropriate means to the location of Bethlehem in observance of the personage whose natal event coincided with his recommended appointment as the supreme monarch of angels. It would be further appreciated if persons proceeding to the said location would be in triplicate adorement pursuant to his sovereign status as Christus Deus.
(Sydney Daily Telegraph, December 9, 2005)
Try singing that with the choir.

In his book Writing at Work: How to Write Clearly, Effectively and Professionally (Allen & Unwin, 2008), James offers 10 guidelines to help "professionals understand what an effective writing style means":

  1. Be aware of your readers and always put their needs first.
  2. Focus on your core message and be ruthless on unnecessary detail.
  3. Use top-heavy document structures that give all your key information up front.
  4. Use layout and design for impact.
  5. Hear the tone of your words and make them speakable.
  6. Use the simplest word for each concept and do not overdress your language.
  7. Be ruthless on clutter.
  8. Write in the active voice.
  9. Place each idea into a sentence of its own.
  10. Get your punctuation right.
So to business and government writers everywhere, here's to a merry Christmas and a clear new year.

More About Writing Clearly:

Image: Writing at Work: How to Write Clearly, Effectively and Professionally, by Neil James (Allen & Unwin, 2008)

Language on Vacation: Words at Play

Monday December 20, 2010

Say the word "pun," and even your best friends are likely to roll their eyes and groan. Say "paronomasia" (the rhetorical term for punning), and those same friends will probably go "Huh?"--and then roll their eyes and groan.

Today's vacation topic is word play, and I'll understand if some of you choose to flee. Columnist Dave Barry sides with those who believe that the punster is the lowest form of humorist:

Puns are little "plays on words" that a certain breed of person loves to spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way to indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the cleverest person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in fact what you are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a lifeboat, the other passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of the first day even if they have plenty of food and water.
So for pun-lovers only, here are a few of the ways we playfully tinker with different senses of the same word--or with the similar sense or sound of different words.

    ANTANACLASIS and PLOCE

    Antanaclasis is a kind of pun in which a word is repeated but with a contrasting (and sometimes comic) meaning. Probably the best known example is from Dave Barry's favorite funnyman, Benjamin Franklin: "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." American football coach Vince Lombardi is credited with this antanaclasis: "If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm."

    Similar word play is shown by ploce: the repetition of a word or name with a new or specified sense. Marketers for upscale newspapers and downscale hotels seem to favor this device:

    • If you don't get it, you don't get it. (The Washington Post)
    • These times demand the Times. (The New York Times)
    • Comfortable Place, Comfortable Price. (Shoney's Inn & Suites)
    • Our Rooms Aren't Fancy. Our Prices Aren't Fancy. (Motel 6)

    DAFFYNITIONS

    As played for many years on the BBC Radio 4 quiz show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, the game of daffynitions involves playful reinterpretations of existing words. You'll find the best of them collected in the Uxbridge English Dictionary. Here are a few.

    • boomerang: what you say to frighten a meringue.
    • coffee: someone who is coughed upon.
    • dilate: live long.
    • indistinct: where one places dirty dishes.
    • pasteurize: too far to see.
    • scandal: footwear you should be ashamed of.
    • testicle: an amusing exam question.

    MALAPROPISMS

    Strictly speaking, verbal blunders aren't rhetorical devices, but, as Archie Bunker once said, "We need a few laughs to break up the monogamy." Named after the character of Mrs. Malaprop in Richard Sheridan's play The Rivals (1775), a malapropism (also known as acyrologia) is any absurd or humorous misuse of a word, especially by confusion with one of similar sound.

    Mr. Bunker, the blue-collar patriarch in the 1970s sitcom All in the Family, was unquestionably a malapropian wonder:

    • Get on the phone and call up the lodge and confirm that the Bunkers is going to Florida as pre-deranged.
    • A witness shall not bear falsies against thy neighbor.
    • It's a proven fact that capital punishment is a well-known detergent to crime.
    • They just want to get rid of us old guys over 50 that's all, and put us out to pasture. Well I ain't ready to be pasteurized!
    • I ain't got no respect for no religion where the head guy claims he can't make no mistakes. Like he's, what do you call it, inflammable.
    • You can smell incest in the church all the time.
    • Do you believe that guy making suppository remarks while I'm singing "God Bless America"?

    NEOLOGISMS

    Sometimes playful (but often not), a neologism is any newly coined word or expression. Such words occasionally stick around long enough to enter the language (and our dictionaries) as full-fledged members: email, pooper scooper, homophobia, soccer mom. Most disappear as quickly as they arrived. Anyone remember the verb to bobbit, the noun Diana-philes, or Oxford's Word of the Year, refudiate?

    Back in the 1980s on the HBO series Not Necessarily the News, comedian Rich Hall coined the term sniglet to describe a "word that should be in the dictionary, but isn't." Here are a few examples of Hall's neologisms:

    • baldage: the accumulation of hair in the drain after showering.
    • blamestorming: the act of sitting around in a group, discussing who or what was responsible for a missed deadline or a failed project.
    • Cheedle: the orange residue left on fingers after eating Cheetos or some other cheese-like snack.
    • doork: a person who always pushes on a door marked "pull" or vice versa.
    • Krogling: the nibbling of small items of fruit and produce at the supermarket, which the customer considers "free sampling" and the owner considers "shoplifting."
    • Oreosis: the practice of licking the "creamy" center of an Oreo cookie before eating the two circular chocolate wafers.
    • schwiggle: the amusing rotation of one's bottom while sharpening a pencil.

On the subject of word play, I could go on and on. But hearing pupsqueaks (the sound a yawning dog emits when it opens its mouth too wide), I'll instead turn this punnery over to you. If you're a paronomasiac with an example of word play to share, just click on the "comments" button below.

Until then, as Archie Bunker once said, "Case closed, ipso fatso."

More Word Play:

Image: The New Uxbridge English Dictionary by Jon Naismith (HarperCollins, 2008)

A TV Guide to Grammar and Usage

Friday December 17, 2010

Educational television may be an oxymoron, but that doesn't mean popular TV programs can't be used to illustrate points of grammar and usage. Today's sampler shows that now and then you can learn about language with the television on.

To discover a bit more about the lexical items in these dialogues, turn off the TV and follow the links to our Index of Commonly Confused Words and Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms.


  • Dr. House's Euphemisms
    Dr. House: I'm busy.
    Thirteen: We need you to . . .
    Dr. House: Actually, as you can see, I'm not busy. It's just a euphemism for "get the hell out of here."
    (Hugh Laurie and Olivia Wilde in the episode "Dying Changes Everything." House, M.D., 2008)

  • Lexical Ambiguity in Lost
    Sayid: Polar bears don't live this far south.
    Boone: This one does.
    Sawyer: Did. It did.
    Kate: Where did that come from?
    Sawyer: Probably bear village. How the hell do I know?
    Kate: Not the bear, the gun.
    (Pilot episode of Lost, 2004)

  • Shawn Spencer on Literally and Figuratively
    Juliet O'Hara: Detective Lassiter is literally on fire.
    Shawn Spencer: What kind of fire are we talking about? Michael Jackson in the Pepsi commercial fire or misusing the word literally fire?
    (Maggie Lawson and James Roday in "65 Million Miles Off." Psych, 2007)

  • Tony Soprano's Malapropisms: Anecdote and Antidote
    That's another thing. I don't want to hear anymore how it was in your day. From now on, keep your antidotes to local color, like Dynoflow or the McGuire Sisters.
    (Tony Soprano to "Feech" La Manna in "All Happy Families." The Sopranos, 2004)

  • Abby's Neologisms
    McGee: What are we looking for?
    Abby: Just anything that's hinky.
    McGee: Why do you use that word?
    Abby: What word?
    McGee: Hinky. It's a made-up word.
    Abby: All words are made-up words.
    (Sean Murray and Pauley Perrette, "A Weak Link." NCIS, 2004)

  • Onomatopoeia in The West Wing
    Russian Negotiator: Why must every American president bound out of an automobile like he's at a yacht club while in comparison our leader looks like . . . I don't even know what word is.
    Sam Seaborn: Frumpy?
    Russian Negotiator: I don't know what frumpy is, but onomatopoetically sounds right.
    Sam Seaborn: It's hard not to like a guy who doesn't know frumpy but knows onomatopoeia.
    (Ian McShane and Rob Lowe in "Enemies Foreign and Domestic." The West Wing, 2002)

  • Larry David on Passed and Past
    The scene opens with a shot of Larry David, his cousin Andy, and Larry's father, Nat David, standing in front of Adele David's tombstone, which reads:
    Born
    Sept 18, 1920

    Past Away
    Oct 21, 2001
    Larry: "Past away"? P-a-s-t? Dad, you spelled passed wrong. It's not spelled p-a-s-t. "Passed away": p-a-s-s-e-d.
    Nat: I know how to spell it. It's $50 a letter.
    Larry: You spelled it wrong on purpose to save $100?
    Nat: Yes. Why not? It's the same meaning. Everyone knows what it means.
    Andy: It's not the same meaning.
    Larry: You saved $100? Well, I would have paid for it.
    ("The Black Swan." Curb Your Enthusiasm, 2009)

  • Jerry Seinfeld's Prefixes
    I don't trust the guy. I think he regifted, then he degifted, and now he's using an upstairs invite as a springboard to a Super Bowl sex romp.
    (Jerry Seinfeld, "The Label Maker." Seinfeld, 1995)

  • Homer Simpson's Suffixes
    Good things don't end in -eum; they end in -mania or -teria.
    (Homer Simpson, "Life on the Fast Lane." The Simpsons, 1990)

  • Lisa Simpson's Synonyms
    Relax? I can't relax! Nor can I yield, relent, or . . .. Only two synonyms? Oh my! I'm losing my perspicacity!
    (Lisa Simpson, "The PTA Disbands." The Simpsons, 1995)

  • Judge Phelan on Than and Then
    Look here, Jimmy. You misspelled culpable. And you're confusing then and than. T-h-e-n is an adverb used to divide and measure time. "Detective McNulty makes a mess, and then he has to clean it up." Not to be confused with t-h-a-n, which is most commonly used after a comparative adjective or adverb, as in, "Rhonda is smarter than Jimmy."
    (Judge Daniel Phelan to Detective Jimmy McNulty in the episode "The Wire." The Wire, 2002)

  • Tony and Ducky on Who and Whom
    Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo: Hired by who?
    Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard: Whom, Tony. Who is the nominative case. Whom always follows a preposition.
    (Michael Weatherly and David McCallum in "Love and War." NCIS, 2007)

  • The Office Staff on Whoever and Whomever
    Ryan: What I really want, honestly Michael, is for you to know it, so that you can communicate it to the people here, to your clients, to whomever.
    Michael Scott: [chuckles] Okay.
    Ryan: What?
    Michael: It's whoever, not whomever.
    Ryan: No, it's whomever.
    Michael: No, whomever is never actually right.
    Jim: Sometimes it's right.
    Creed: Michael is right. It's a made-up word used to trick students.
    Andy: No. Actually, whomever is the formal version of the word.
    Oscar: Obviously it's a real word, but I don't know when to use it correctly.
    Michael: [to camera] Not a native speaker.
    Pam: It's whom when it's the object of the sentence and who when it's the subject.
    Phyllis: That sounds right.
    Michael: Well, it sounds right, but is it?
    Stanley: How did Ryan use it, as an object?
    Ryan: As an object.
    Kelly: Ryan used me as an object.
    Stanley: Is he right about that . . .?
    Pam: How did he use it again?
    Toby: It was . . . Ryan wanted Michael, the subject, to explain the computer system, the object . . .
    Michael: Thank you!
    Toby: . . . to whomever, meaning us, the indirect object--which is the correct usage of the word.
    Michael: No one asked you anything ever, so whomever's name is Toby, why don't you take a letter opener and stick it into your skull.
    ("Money." The Office, 2007)

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