Posts tagged as:

John McIntyre

RAMSHACKLE: loosely made or held together; rickety

March 24, 2013

Ramshackle is a fascinating word.  It isn’t uncommon; in fact, it is quite commonly used in discussions, writings, and other forms of communication.  But, again, it occurred to me that I didn’t know where the word came from, and I suspected that many of us who use this word regularly are in the same boat.   [...]

Read the full article →

ELDRITCH [EL-drich] : weird, unearthly

January 14, 2013

I went to the theater to see Promised Land with Matt Damon this weekend.   But, as ever, it’s impossible to go to a movie without having to endure at least ten minutes of trailers prior to the sigh of relief when the words “Featured Presentation” come on the screen and we are cautioned to turn [...]

Read the full article →

NOR’EASTER [nawr-EE-ster]: a storm coming in from the northeast

November 8, 2012

When a storm in the northeastern part of the United States comes in from the ocean, particularly from a point northeast of the land site, it is called a nor’easter.  There are language purists who insist that the proper word is a northeaster, but we who live in this part of the country know that [...]

Read the full article →

MILITANT IGNORANCE: the desire on the part of individuals to wallow in false beliefs despite their knowledge of the truth

March 19, 2012

It frustrates the heck out of me when I hear people say something they know is false, but which they have embraced for the purpose of winning points.   You hear it all the time in political rallies. the Presidents is not a natural-born American the soaring  gas prices are the fault of the President Mitt [...]

Read the full article →

DEMOTIC: pertaining to the common people

August 21, 2011

I ran across the word demotic while reading the recent posting of John McIntyre in his blog You Don’t Say. Demotic is a word used with some regularity, it would seem, in the world of linguistics.  It means “common language” as opposed to “formal language.”   Over decades and centuries of use language changes.   Formal usages [...]

Read the full article →

WHINGE: to complain or whine

February 15, 2011

I’m thankful to my colleague, John McIntyre, for the word whinge which came up in one of his postings a couple of weeks ago.   It’s a great word, available to writers who tire of the day-to-day words to describe a  phenomenon.    How easy would it be for a writer to say, “She just couldn’t stop [...]

Read the full article →

RETICENT: hesitant, reluctant

October 24, 2010

Reticent is one of those words that can by misconstrued easily.   I was reading John McIntyre’s blog posting for Saturday in which he distinguishes between refute and rebut. He is absolutely right that there is a big difference between the two words.  One is an act of confrontation and the other is an act of [...]

Read the full article →

NOES: the plural form of the word “no”

July 20, 2010

In a recent article I read the report of someone who was making the case that the Republicans in Congress are the” Party of No!” It is a  criticism which we have heard numerous times over the past eighteen months of the Obama administration.  Clearly, it is a technique decided upon and organized by the [...]

Read the full article →

COCKING A SNOOK: to show that you do not respect something or someone by doing something that insults them

July 7, 2010

I’m told there’s a blogging tradition which involves building upon an existing post on someone else’s blog.  I hope I’m right, because today I’m using the same title  that John McIntyre uses today on his blog, You Don’t Say. As I’ve told you before, it’s the first blog I check out every day.  Without ever [...]

Read the full article →

EDITOR’S EYE: the ability to catch written problems that will confuse the reader

April 26, 2010

Ever since I began writing this blog in October, 2009, I have been increasingly exposed to the realm of editing.   I was vaguely aware of the profession before then, but of late I have become personally involved as I befriended editors of all stripes and began to hear their stories.  Unfortunately, the primary story they [...]

Read the full article →