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SO ENGLISH IS OUR OFFICIAL LANGUAGE
When it comes to goofiness, there is a tie between Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, and the American Congress. For example, in the past week or so, the Senate has passed a resolution announcing that English is our only official language. It is meant of course to bar Spanish, which the Mexican immigrants speak.…
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“ENGLISH IS A RICH LANGUAGE” – (SVEN OF UMEǺ, CIRCA 1975)
Umeå is an important Swedish port on the upper reaches of the Baltic Sea. The pronunciation of its name has always been in doubt for those of us who do not speak Swedish. Some English speakers call it Oomea while others refer to it as Youmea. This is quite understandable in that Swen of Umeå…
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EZ-REEE’S SILVER DOLLAR JUBILEE
From the year 1776, the United States depended on the United States Army (USA) to fight its battles. The Army fought in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and in the First World War and acquitted itself very well. However, shortly after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Army brass determined…
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THE THIRD RAIL SQUARED
When someone speaking to me works the phrase “critical mass” into a sentence, this illiterate mangler of words tends to believe that there is a degree of condescension in the conversation. It is much like a former AT&T colleague using the phrase “pro-active.” My impulse was to say, “What the hell does that mean?” But…
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RANDOM ENGLISH LANGUAGE MUSINGS
This morning I managed to cut my leg in a minor manner. When I assured all concerned that the leg would not have to be amputated, I simply said, “It is all right. It just smarts.” I suspect that the use of “smarts” in that sense must have reappeared in my vocabulary after an absence…
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NUNCE: A NEW NEOLOGISM
When the British post office delivers copies of this essay to the former Camille Parker-Bowles and her mother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, both of them will pounce on the title as a redundancy or as a tautology. That it is a redundancy and a tautology, I fully agree. But it seems to me that the new word…
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“….AS A CHRISTMAS GOOSE”
Richard Cheney is the rotund and sparsely beloved Vice President of the United States. The civilized world regards him with no affection whatsoever. During the last week of November, Mr. Cheney had a bout with atrial fibrillation. This is a cardiac condition that, if left untreated, could result in grave damage to the heart muscle…
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BASS ACKWARD-LY-NESS
My mother spoke no foreign tongues. The grammar of English, her native language, gave her enough trouble. Yet she was a master of “country speak.” She was the one who said, when she was full of food and drink, that she was “full as a tick” or “tighter than a June bug.” It was also…