Author Archive
Articles by Merrill Perlman | Email the Author
Stock Answers
A stylebook takes on financial terms
By Merrill Perlman Nov 8, 2010 at 02:42 PM
If you’ve been reading too much “financial porn,” you might be tempted by the “skirt-length theory” and try to “buy... More
Leading Questions
How some journalism terms were born
By Merrill Perlman Nov 1, 2010 at 01:52 PM
The Associated Press recently said it would stop using some wire-service jargon as instructions on its stories. Among them were... More
Boo!
Scary words
By Merrill Perlman Oct 25, 2010 at 03:00 PM
Halloween is next week, and thousands of people are “scarifying” their houses in anticipation of the hordes of trick-or-treating children.... More
Overly Possessive
Why the lack of an apostrophe sometimes isn’t wrong
By Merrill Perlman Oct 18, 2010 at 01:13 PM
A student recently asked why she had been corrected when she wrote “The teacher’s union voted to strike.” That’s easy:... More
Loan Ranger
Money can change a noun to a verb
By Merrill Perlman Oct 11, 2010 at 12:48 PM
The reporter seemingly couldn’t make up his mind. In an article about a mayor’s financial problem, the reporter used a... More
Who, I?
When personal pronouns don’t get along
By Merrill Perlman Oct 4, 2010 at 12:34 PM
If you go to Language Corner’s Facebook page (and while you’re there, you may as well “like” it), you’ll see... More
Echo Chamber
On redundant acronyms and initialisms
By Merrill Perlman Sep 30, 2010 at 04:59 PM
An acronym or initialism can become so familiar that we forget what it stands for and add one of its... More
Selling Short
When words are truncated, spellings differ
By Merrill Perlman Sep 27, 2010 at 03:03 PM
By now, just about everyone knows what an “app” is, and knows it’s short for “application.” The verb form of... More
Un-towards
Tacking ‘s’ on to some directional words
By Merrill Perlman Sep 21, 2010 at 12:19 PM
“The electorate seems to be moving towards the right,” one media site said after a conservative candidate won a recent... More
Sic Transitive Gloria
‘For,’ ‘from,’ and ‘on’ go bye-bye
By Merrill Perlman Sep 13, 2010 at 11:35 AM
When a journalism professor gave students the sentence “He snapped to attention only when a tourist asked directions,” a number... More
Been There
Learning to dodge clichés
By Merrill Perlman Sep 7, 2010 at 11:12 AM
Hurricane Earl was a monster, a Category 4 storm. Along the East Coast from North Carolina to New England, news... More
You Said What?
Words that have changed meaning
By Merrill Perlman Aug 30, 2010 at 12:55 PM
Kenn Fong wonders about words whose meanings have been co-opted by popular culture. “The other day a friend spoke of... More
Look It Up!
A dictionary by any other name…
By Merrill Perlman Aug 23, 2010 at 03:43 PM
Twitter was all, ah, atwitter last week because a new edition of a dictionary came out, adding about 2,000 words... More
Double Word Score
The same word, only different
By Merrill Perlman Aug 16, 2010 at 02:37 PM
The truck on the highway carrying dangerous chemicals usually carries a notice that its contents are “inflammable.” If the truck... More
Capital Losses
When a noun is proper, or not
By Merrill Perlman Aug 9, 2010 at 12:23 PM
The coming fall elections promise a lot of intrigue. We will read in The New York Times all about the... More
Sworn Out
How vulgar can you be?
By Merrill Perlman Aug 2, 2010 at 01:21 PM
Caution: Adult content ahead! Only a dork or scumbag wouldn’t acknowledge screwing up, though admitting error really sucks. And only... More
For Giving
How to know when ‘for’ needs an ‘e’
By Merrill Perlman Jul 26, 2010 at 04:00 PM
A golfer who hits a ball into the vicinity of others is beholden to yell “Fore!” to warn them to... More
Two Shall Be as One
The gospel of merging words
By Merrill Perlman Jul 19, 2010 at 03:52 PM
In the beginning, there were two words. And people went forth and used the words separately or together as needed.... More
Presto, Chango!
The magic of a deceptive word
By Merrill Perlman Jul 13, 2010 at 10:21 AM
Many legislators are resorting to interesting budget tricks to try to pay for everything they want without necessarily having the... More
The ‘-ize’ Have It
A popular suffix gets even more so
By Merrill Perlman Jul 6, 2010 at 11:38 AM
News organizations are in a quandary. They’re trying to “incentivize” readers, “monetize” the publication’s content, and “prioritize” their resources. It’s... 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?
This is the best moment to be in journalism (25)
The WSJ editorial page hits rock bottom (19)
The completist guide to Star Trek
Matt Yglesias watched every Star Trek movie and every episode of every TV show in the franchise
The uncomfortable questions not raised by Benghazi
The press and Congress are asking the wrong questions
Rob Ford in ‘crack cocaine’ video scandal
A video that appears to show Toronto’s mayor smoking crack is being shopped around by a group of Somali men involved in the drug trade
Why the underwear-bomber leak infuriated the Obama administration
The threat of even grander leaks
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.
