http://www.cjr.org/ Columbia Journalism Review: The future of media is here en Copyright 2013 Mon, 20 May 2013 15:00:00 -0500 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss By Merrill Perlman One man "pleaded guilty to DWI." Another "pled guilty of DWI." A third "entered a plea of guilty to DWI charges." What's going on, aside from way too much drinking? Prepositions are little words with great power. As discussed here many times, just a few letters can radically alter meaning. Just change "I'm stuck on you" to "I'm stuck with... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/pleas-ing_words.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/pleas-ing_words.php Language Corner Mon, 20 May 2013 15:00:00 -0500 By Merrill Perlman The New York Times recently posted an opinion piece and a short film about a "vigilante copy editor" who was "correcting" placards at the sculpture garden at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Among the hundreds of comments lamenting the proliferation of bad grammar and misspellings in the world were the inevitable swipes at the grammar and spelling of... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/grammar_police.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/grammar_police.php Language Corner Mon, 13 May 2013 15:00:00 -0500 By Merrill Perlman The cashier at the fancy foods store was from Bosnia. "I have so much hard time with English," she said. "Why when you add one letter does whole word change?" She had asked the customer if she had a "dim," and the customer was flummoxed. "A dim," the cashier kept repeating. "A dim. Ten cents." "Oh, a dime," the... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/letter_perfect.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/letter_perfect.php Language Corner Mon, 06 May 2013 15:00:00 -0500 By Merrill Perlman The witness, according to the news story, said the robbers were "plum crazy." Not unless they were robbing a green grocer. (It was a McDonald's.) A "plum" is a fruit, usually of a deep purple color, also called "plum." When dried, "plums" used to be known as "prunes" until prunes got a marketing department and became known as "dried plums."... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/language_corner_mj2013.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/language_corner_mj2013.php Language Corner Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:16 -0500 By Merrill Perlman WARNING: Grammar lesson ahead. If you ever knew what a "participle" was, you may have forgotten. Same with the word "gerund." And if you ever heard the term "fused participle," you probably zoned out completely. The concept of a "fused participle," though, is a good one to know, if sometimes disputed and difficult to understand. But let's try. "He... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/participial_con-fusion.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/participial_con-fusion.php Language Corner Tue, 30 Apr 2013 06:50:00 -0500 By Merrill Perlman "I don't know nothing about birthing babies!" Butterfly McQueen told Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind. Those who believe "birth" should not be used as a verb may accept the line as part of the attempt to replicate contemporary slave dialect. As it turns out, though, in the novel, by Margaret Mitchell, it was Scarlett O'Hara, not Prissy the... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/natal_gazing.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/natal_gazing.php Language Corner Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:00:00 -0500 By Merrill Perlman The mayor's op-ed piece urged action on a regional 911 system, which, among other things, would "provide consistent and transparent performance metrics countywide." Alas, the program has not been put into effect, "as a result of the political optics." If you were playing Buzzword Bingo, you might have won by now. Jargon and more jargon. "Metrics" as... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/writing_tics.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/writing_tics.php Language Corner Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:51:00 -0500 By Merrill Perlman "Deer Creek blames fire on science experiment," read one headline. "Arsonist blames fire on living conditions," said another. Some people would take umbrage with both of those sentences, asserting that the finger of blame was pointing in the wrong direction. The preposition wanted here, they would say, is "for," not "on." Theodore M. Bernstein's classic Watch Your Language has... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/blame_excuses.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/blame_excuses.php Language Corner Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:43:50 -0500 By Merrill Perlman Major league baseball season gets under way this week, so let's throw out the first ball, left-handed. That's called "southpaw." A lot of citations will tell you that the term arose from the practice of aligning baseball fields so that a batter faced east, and not into the setting sun. (This, of course, in the days before night games.) If... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/season_openers.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/season_openers.php Language Corner Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:00:00 -0500 By Merrill Perlman The artists were being praised for their technique in which, the article said, they "use only pallet knives, not brushes." The conference attendees were told that "it's not too early to start whetting your palette for" the food expected to be served. And the article talked about a shipment of "wooden palates infested with the Asian long-horned beetle." Possibly wrong,... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/unpalatable.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/unpalatable.php Language Corner Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:00:00 -0500 By Merrill Perlman English teachers used to drill into students that they did not "feel good." They "felt well." It was the corollary to "I feel bad," not "I feel badly," to which many teachers would reply something like: "Well, maybe if you took off your gloves, you could feel better." "Good," "well," "bad," and "badly" all define how you feel, but not... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/worldly_goods.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/worldly_goods.php Language Corner Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:00:00 -0500 By Merrill Perlman The pope gets to wear nice red shoes, and a friend said, "I'm really jealous of those!" But, technically, she couldn't be jealous, unless she thought the shoes were hers, and the pope had stolen them. Instead, she "envied" the shoes, and was "envious" that he gets to wear them. "Jealousy" and "envy" have very similar meanings and are often... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/covetous.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/covetous.php Language Corner Mon, 11 Mar 2013 17:42:39 -0500 By Merrill Perlman Betsy Wade was ecstatic. "At last!" she exclaimed. "For the next few weeks people will be using the word conclave correctly!" Wade knows whereof she speaks. The first woman to be a copy desk chief at The New York Times (and the lead plaintiff in a landmark women's suit against The Times), she understands these things. A true... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/cardinal_rules.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/cardinal_rules.php Language Corner Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:24:38 -0500 By Merrill Perlman A "bellwether" is an indication of what is to come ("Are rising home prices a bellwether for the economy?") or a leader for others to follow ("Infosys is no longer a bellwether for the IT sector."). Sometimes it's spelled "bellweather," perhaps because, as Garner's Modern American Usage says, "like a weathervane, it shows which way the wind blows." But "bellwether"... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/language_corner.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/language_corner.php Language Corner Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:14 -0500 By Merrill Perlman Of the many small errors that bedevil many writers--and enrage their teachers and editors--there is perhaps none so simple to understand, and explain, than the use of "it's" when "its" is meant. It should be easy: "it's" is a contraction of "it is," the way "can't" is a contraction of "cannot." The apostrophe's role here is to signal that a... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/its_time.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/its_time.php Language Corner Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:00:17 -0500