Subject-verb agreement sounds easy, doesn’t it? A singular subject takes singular verb, and a plural subject takes a plural verb. Yet The Copyeditor's Handbook lists no fewer than 25 cases that aren't so clear-cut, and Garner's Modern American Usage devotes nearly 5 columns to the topic. Even the comparatively diminutive Grammar Smart devotes five pages (including quizzes) to the topic. What makes subject-verb agreement so hard?  Continue reading...

This weekend, the movie "The King's Speech" gets its nationwide release in the United States, and it's already getting talked about as a front-runner for the Oscars. It has also received a great deal of buzz in the speech therapy community for its sensitive and credible depiction of King George VI's speech impediment and the methods that his therapist Lionel Logue used to overcome it. I take a look at the movie and the real-life story in my latest On Language column, appearing in the Oscars issue of the New York Times Magazine.  Continue reading...

Even the most kind and gentle soul can probably think of dozens of people to loathe, despise, disrespect, scorn, condemn, resent, pooh-pooh, or simply hold in contempt — the unkindest cuddle of all. But it’s difficult to discuss the objects of our hatred in language that captures the despicable-ness of the named while keeping the namer clean of the mud being slung.  Continue reading...

The University of Chicago website is featuring an article about three alumni who have become "ambassadors of lexicography" and are "putting a public face on modern language studies": Jesse Sheidlower of the Oxford English Dictionary, Erin McKean of Wordnik, and Ben Zimmer of the Visual Thesaurus. Read the article here.

Have you finished your Grouponicus shopping, or are you waiting till the last minute? Perhaps you prefer the austere rituals of Festivus or the Judeo-Christian compromise of Chrismukkah. Or is the pantheistic free-for-all known as Chrismahanukwanzakah more to your end-of-the-year taste?  Continue reading...

The modern, and somewhat cynical line on poets is that they should not quit their day jobs. Poet pay is dismal or nonexistent; the opportunities for contemporary recognition, minuscule; and the chances for posthumous celebration, hardly to be taken seriously. We’re taking a contrarian view in the Lounge this month, as we dust off the Poetry Corner and pay a visit to a poet who never really had a day job, but who left an enduring imprint on the language, echoes of which can still be heard every day throughout the wide world of English.  Continue reading...