Author Archive
Articles by Merrill Perlman | Email the Author
Lost Innocence
People plead “not guilty”
By Merrill Perlman Sep 21, 2009 at 05:42 PM
Back in the days before everyone had a computer, news stories would have to be retyped at least once before... More
Times Up
Is “three times more” the same as “three times as many”?
By Merrill Perlman Sep 15, 2009 at 01:44 PM
Most journalists didn’t become so because they’re good at math—even economic journalists. But, when dealing with numbers, you don’t have... More
All Wet
When you read, you “pore,” not “pour”
By Merrill Perlman Sep 9, 2009 at 12:52 PM
The White House releases a bunch of sensitive documents on a Friday afternoon, and the investigative reporter resigns herself to... More
Nerve Center
“Enervate” is not “energetic”
By Merrill Perlman Aug 31, 2009 at 04:43 PM
Context clues are wonderful things. With them, a writer can load an article with lots of unusual or unfamiliar words... More
Double Entendre
When one word has opposite meanings
By Merrill Perlman Aug 24, 2009 at 03:16 PM
San Francisco commuters were relieved recently when a commuter rail strike was averted. But for some time, stories about the... More
Off the Wrack
The difference between “rack” and “wrack” is a wreck
By Merrill Perlman Aug 17, 2009 at 05:18 PM
One news article said: “Compensation is coming under greater scrutiny since the world’s biggest financial companies wracked up almost $1.6... More
Apostrophe Catastrophes
Why is this little mark so troublesome?
By Merrill Perlman Aug 10, 2009 at 01:19 PM
We’ve all seen it and cringed: The sign advertising “Antique’s for Sale,” the one in the supermarket boasting about it’s... More
Silent Speaker
How “reticent” came to mean “reluctant”
By Merrill Perlman Aug 3, 2009 at 12:10 PM
In one recent news article, a buyer said he was “reticent” to participate in the “cash for clunkers” program because... More
Vir-gin Version
“Ginning up” won’t make you drunk
By Merrill Perlman Jul 27, 2009 at 04:49 PM
President Barack Obama apparently enjoys “ginning up.” While we’ve known that his wife, Michelle, enjoys a martini or two on... More
You Spell Potato, I Spell Potatoe
Spelling “foreign” words
By Merrill Perlman Jul 20, 2009 at 04:16 PM
If you read The New York Times, you’ve run across news of things happening in the Saudi Arabian city “Jidda.”... More
Sacrilegious
“Secular” moves from the church to the state
By Merrill Perlman Jul 13, 2009 at 03:39 PM
We’re living in a “secular” time. Well, duh. Of course it’s “secular”; America has no state religion, as in Israel... More
Uncoupling
Is it OK to omit the “of” after “couple”?
By Merrill Perlman Jul 6, 2009 at 03:26 PM
The coach was talking about his latest trade, which he said was “hopefully the first of several deals to come... More
What’s All the Fuss?
Describing an uproar with fun words
By Merrill Perlman Jun 29, 2009 at 02:46 PM
Journalists love words, and many will go out of their way to find “special” ways of using unusual words. Sometimes... More
False Alarms
What the fire department doesn’t tell you
By Merrill Perlman Jun 22, 2009 at 03:09 PM
The fire department was having a busy day. First it was the “two-alarm” fire and then came the “six-alarm” one.... More
Jumping Off ‘Allege’
The criminalization of a word
By Merrill Perlman Jun 15, 2009 at 03:17 PM
It’s virtually impossible to pinpoint when the misuse of a word or phrase becomes so common that it’s no longer... More
Compounded Interest
Pick your prefix: “dis” or “un”?
By Merrill Perlman Jun 8, 2009 at 05:12 PM
You’ve gotten into a dispute with a merchant, who sold you what you think is defective merchandise. Because the merchant... More
As You Like It
Avoiding “such as” problems
By Merrill Perlman Jun 2, 2009 at 08:00 AM
Journalists often have difficulty with highly focused grammatical concepts like subject-verb agreement, dangling participles, whether “none” is plural or singular,... More
Sick-Out
What do you say when you call?
By Merrill Perlman May 19, 2009 at 10:54 AM
You’re not feeling well. Maybe it’s the swine flu—or the Mexican flu or H1N1—but you don’t want to take any... More
Freelance-A-Lot
Defining the terms of employment
By Merrill Perlman May 15, 2009 at 01:05 PM
What happens to many journalists who are laid off? in many cases, they become “permalancers,” sometimes even for their previous... More
I Want to Be Alone
Why one transition should disappear
By Merrill Perlman May 11, 2009 at 03:13 PM
Journalists are pack animals. If someone does a story, others often follow. So it is, too, with words and phrases.... More
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
Josh Barro, the loneliest Republican
What to make of the 28-year-old columnist’s contempt for the GOP—and its would-be reformers
Dowd and Fournier and countless others who have launched similar complaints are asking, “Why aren’t we getting what we were promised?”
Elizabeth Spiers on launching media brands
What do news publications need to do to adapt to digital? Any publication you see doing it really well?
Wolf Blitzer and other journalists should leave God out of natural disasters
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
