If you ask me to complete the phrase "hotter than ________", "July" is what comes to my mind first. The calendar inspires the subject of this month's column, which I might characterize as "uses and abuses of the comparative".  Continue reading...

I dunno if dueling fact perceptions is an iota less ridiculous than partisan facts, or the ever-popular alternative facts. Any way you slice it, you're choosing to live in a thin bubble of baloney. Speaking of baloney, the drivel deli is always open here at Evasive Maneuvers.  Continue reading...

Regardless of where your views fall on the political spectrum, there's a pretty good chance that you subscribe to the idea that we are in a new age of inauthenticity. The modern world makes it even more of a challenge to "get real" when we are communicating with language.  Continue reading...

Here are some of the latest and non-greatest lengths your fellow hairless apes have gone to not say what they mean.  Continue reading...

The relations among words are not so different from those among people. It's not unusual for, say, first cousins to bear no obvious resemblance to each other, but if we examine their DNA we find that they have a grandparent in common.  Continue reading...

Is Dreyer's English "utterly correct"? Of course not, as the author would be the first to acknowledge. But it's compulsively readable, thoroughly helpful, and delightfully funny. For anyone who cares about writing well, it's an utterly essential addition to your shelf of most-reached-for reference books.  Continue reading...