Q: The Playbill for Lincoln Center’s tribute to Oscar Peterson says Kenny Baron, one of the pianists performing, “honed his chops” playing with Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Jackson, Freddie Hubbard, and other jazz musicians. How did “chops” come to mean skill? A test for your etymological chops. A: The story beginsContinue Reading
March brings in FULL WORM MOON, also known as a Crow Moon or a Sap Moon. Historically, month names are names of moons in lunisolar calendars. Such names have gained currency in American folklore. They appear in print more widely outside of the almanac tradition from the 1990s in popularContinue Reading
Dame Jane Morris Goodall DBE (born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall, 3 April 1934), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English primatologist and anthropologist. Considered to be the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her over 55-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees sinceContinue Reading
What can you find in MARCH INTO LITERACY MONTH? A lexagram (or lexigram) is a form of wordplay where the letters in a name or phrase are shuffled to create new words. These new words make short statements that, ideally, describe the original term. For example, the word ASTRONOMICAL hasContinue Reading
Q: We occasionally indulge in a late-night drink and an episode of Yes, Minister, the BBC sitcom from the 1980s. In the last episode of Season 1, Sir Humphrey says, “It takes two to quango, Minister!” We know you’ll enjoy the pun, but we’re also curious about the usage. A:Continue Reading
Q: In my ESL class, I wrote the following sentence: “I was sick yesterday, so all I did was resting at home.” My teacher said I should have written “rest,” not “resting,” but he couldn’t give a grammatical explanation. He said his native ear informed him. Was he correct? A:Continue Reading
In the business world, building a trustworthy reputation for your brand is paramount to success. Even your email closing should contribute positively to your image. Let’s learn how to use one common signoff, “Sincerely yours,” properly. What It Means “Sincerely” means proceeding from genuine feelings or beliefs. However, much inContinue Reading
The Grammarphobia Blog February 18th, 2019 Q: I’ve read that Thomas Jefferson, our third president, liked to coin new words. He thought neologisms kept a language fresh. For Presidents’ Day, please write about some POTUS contributions to the English language. A: Yes, Thomas Jefferson coined scores of new words, includingContinue Reading
Q: I see that you’ve used the phrase “red herring” several times on your blog, but I don’t believe you’ve explained how it came to mean something that’s deceptive or distracting, especially a false clue in a mystery. Did I miss it? A: No, you didn’t miss it, but nowContinue Reading
Big Tease Making great wordplay with lexagrams uses many types of language skills. Success involves more than having a large vocabulary – it helps to recognize letter patterns and to visualize how words interact. To help build these skills, take a look at his great puzzle quiz. Each answer isContinue Reading