Yesterday, writing teacher Margaret Hundley Parker offered a delightful lesson on the perils of learning grammar from rock and roll lyrics. Among the grammatical malefactors are Bob Dylan, whose song "Lay, Lady, Lay" uses the verb lay in an intransitive fashion instead of lie. Likewise, Dylan sang "If not for you, babe, I'd lay awake all night," and "I wanna lay right down and die." But he should get points for using lay in the transitive too, as in: "Lay down your weary tune," or using lay as the proper past-tense form of lie: "I spied an old hobo, in a doorway he lay." Still, if the foremost bard of American popular music can't be consistent on this point, what hope is there for the rest of us?  Continue reading...

As the recession worsens, we're all learning far more than we ever wanted to know about the ins and outs of the banking industry, ground zero of the financial meltdown. And we're learning new lingo too: the news these days brings word of good banks, bad banks, zombie banks, and even banksters.  Continue reading...

Last month a usage dispute broke out in the comments section here on the Visual Thesaurus. Our "Evasive Maneuvers" columnist Mark Peters described a friend who "started feeling nauseous." Two commenters objected to this use of nauseous, saying that the word properly describes someone or something that is sickening, and that the word Mark should have used is nauseated. Who's right?  Continue reading...

The 2009 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, held this past weekend at the Brooklyn Marriott, had it all: warm cameraderie of puzzle-minded word lovers, and high drama in the finals that left the audience alternately gasping and cheering. If you missed any of our coverage of the Tournament, here's a handy recap.  Continue reading...

The finals of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament promised to be a thrilling event, and it did not disappoint. Tyler Hinman emerged as the winner for a fifth consecutive time, but only after a grueling and highly dramatic round against fellow finalists Francis Heaney and Trip Payne.  Continue reading...

The first day of competitive play at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament saw 684 contestants fill the main ballroom of the Brooklyn Marriott, solving six puzzles that ranged from breezy to downright fiendish. With the interim results tallied, the scoring leaders are mostly familiar faces in the crossword world — with one notable exception: Dan Feyer, in only his second year of tournament play, is sitting pretty in the number one spot.  Continue reading...

Tonight the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament kicks off at the Brooklyn Marriott with "an evening of games and entertainments" — a night of conviviality before the Tournament proper begins Saturday morning. We here at the Visual Thesaurus are happy to help sponsor the Friday fun, providing complimentary VT subscriptions to the prize-winners. I'll be attending tonight (in advance of competing in the Tournament in the "rookie" category), and I'm looking forward to meeting up with friends old and new in this collegial community of diehard verbivores.  Continue reading...