From the Annals of Abused Participles
From time to time, certain words are taken up by advocates or advertisers to function as mental or ethical triggers, in the forum of debate. Formal definitions are largely ignored in favor of a...
View ArticleThe Return of the Grammar Nazi
Perhaps the best evidence that a bad grammatical mistake is actually taking root in the language, is when you see people doing it on "bad grammar" discussion sites online. I noticed this not less than...
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Decadence As Its Own Reward
I sometimes wonder what America will look like in 100, or 200 years. We're still a young nation compared to Europe. Humans didn't arrive in the Western Hemisphere until long after they'd settled in...
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Boy Scouts of America Goes Gay
Yesterday, the Boy Scouts of America formally voted in secret ballot at the National Council's annual meeting, to open their ranks to openly gay boys for the first time. 61% of the Council's 1400...
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Dictation
aMAZEme A Book Labyrinth by Brizillian artists Marcos Saboya and Gualter Pupo in London in 2012A Dictionary is an historical monument, the history of a nation contemplated from one point of view, and...
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Calico the Wonder Horse or The Saga of Stewy Stinker
Virginia Lee Burton (Demetrios) as a young womanAs children, we're at the mercy of our parents' will. What we know of life and conduct and possibility comes directly from their sense of the world....
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Freshet - Imbibe for Spring
I haven't done any mountain hiking (or riding) in years, but there's nothing quite like being high up in the Sierras or Rocky Mountains, after a day of climbing, all the way up above the snow-line, and...
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Pinocchio's Paradox
What really bothers me is the way meaning gets bent and twisted by the sound of adjacent senses. Take an example: sway-backed horse. Aside from the evident pain felt by the animal as a consequence of...
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Blame the Cloth [1921]
"A Captain of Industry declaring that the desire of the manual workers to be paid exorbitant wages for doing the least possible amount of work is a sure sign that they have lost their faith in a future...
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Nov 1st 1783
Samuel JohnsonAddress: To Mrs Thrale at Bath. Postmark: 1 No.Madam. . . . . . . . . . . An air ballon has been lately procured by our virtuosi, but it...
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Come Again
THE ROSES AT NIGHTremember how the King of France’s mustache tickled when he knelt down to sniff their petals
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What Happens to People
One of the truly great photographs of all time is the portrait of these two small girls by Diane Arbus.Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967The picture is a meditation about personality. I can't...
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Writing on the Margins - Pasternak/Ashbery Part I
Marginalia occupies a place in literature which we might characterize as . . . well . . . marginal. It obviously can't be considered original composition, since it exists only as running commentary...
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Writing on the Margins - Pasternak/Ashbery Part II
This is the second part of an essay about John Ashbery's copy of the Selected Writings of Boris Pasternak, published in 1949 by New Directions, as Direction 9. A younger PasternakI have photographed...
View ArticleHow to Circumvent the Will of the People
In the San Francisco Chronicle today the two top front page stories were about the U.S. Senate's passage of a sweeping new Immigration Reform bill, and the legal complexities created by the Supreme...
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The Royal Coachman
In the annals of fly-fishing, there are famous lures--or, as they are called "flies"--which have become established in the lore of the sport, either because of their great effectiveness, or in...
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What's With the Extra Is?
Increasingly, you hear people these days using the construction is, is in sentences. What it is, is a new way of talking. The best way to think of what it is, is by imagining that people aren't hearing...
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When Uniforms Go Wrong
Have you ever happened, by accident, to step on your pant-leg? That is, if you were walking around in your socks or barefoot, and the edge of your pant-leg slipped under your heel? What you...
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