Day 384: “And In Closing…”

originally published January 18, 2013 A political catchphrase can be more than a sound bite. It can capture the tone of a movement, appeal to the angst of a people, and sometimes it can be the cluster of words that defines a person’s place in history. But for every “Ask not what your country can […]

Day 370: Eponymation, Part III

originally published January 4, 2013 I devoted a couple of December articles to the curious phenomenon of eponyms, those nuggets of linguistic history in which a word enters our language, named for the soul responsible for its origin. I don’t know if I’ll ever be among the fortunate who have contributed their moniker to our […]

Day 363: What? The “Fuck!”

originally published December 28, 2012 A sizzling labio-dental fricative, a punchy open-mid back unrounded vowel, followed by a triumphant voiceless velar plosive. It’s a single syllable with the cartilage-crunching mule-kick of power. It is fuck. On the one hand, it represents the beautiful act of love; on the other, it is the perfunctory summation of […]

Day 352: Eponymation, Part II

originally published December 17, 2012 A week ago I sifted through a lengthy list of eponyms in search of as much disposable trivia as I could squeeze into a thousand words. As I’m always eager to save some time on a topic-hunt, I’ve decided today’s article will be essentially the same thing, but from a […]

Day 341: Font-astic History

originally published December 6, 2012 How much do you really think about fonts? Are you the type who launches each new typing endeavor in Callibri or Times New Roman because that’s the default your version of Microsoft Word shipped with? Do you revert to Arial / Helvetica because that’s your no-nonsense font standard? Or do […]

Day 331: Keeping Up With The Muddled Past Of Idioms

originally published November 26, 2012 Almost 300 days ago, on a day so distant from the present I can only picture it in sepiatone with crowds rushing about in an undercranked frenzy, their dialog showing up in intertitle cards, I wrote a graduation speech that made use of 150 idioms. When I stumbled onto one […]

Day 323: Snowclones Are The New Black

originally published November 18, 2012 With a name that sounds either like a horrific northern ocean storm or a delicious frozen treat, a snowclone is actually a snippet of language that we make use of all the time. Perhaps too often. As a writer, I try to be mindful of avoiding clichés. It’s almost impossible […]

Day 292: A Super Sexy Artikolo Pri Esperanto Per Mi

originally published October 18, 2012 Just about every known language has evolved over centuries, deriving from a culture’s extensive history of moving around and getting their asses conquered. A small handful of languages have emerged over the past 150 years and actually gained some traction among the throats of the world. There are fantasy lovers […]

Day 276: So Mnany Mnemonics To Remnemnber

originally published October 2, 2012 If you’re like me, then you probably… dammit, I had something here… right, you probably have trouble remembering things. If you’ve ever found yourself uttering “30 days hath September…” or “I before E, except after C…” or “if you stuff a monkey’s armpit with oatmeal…”, then you have employed a […]

Day 272: Neighbor, My Neighbour

originally published September 28, 2012 Many of my more astute readers will no doubt have noticed that I tend to favor the American spelling system above the British / Canadian system I grew up with. A number of people (and here I’m assuming we can utilize zero as a number) have asked why that is. […]