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June 24 - June 27, 2021
FINNEGANS WAKE A novel by James Joyce that you’ve either not read, not comprehended, or both, despite what you tell people. No apostrophe. I repeat: No apostrophe.
WOOKIEE Everyone gets it wrong. It’s not “Wookie.” Also on the subject of the world of Star Wars, “lightsaber” is one word, “dark side” is lowercased (oddly enough), and “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….” ends with a period and three ellipsis points, even though it is a fragment and not a complete sentence, because that is how the Star Wars people like it. And if you challenge them on any of these points, they’ll cut your hand off. True story.
MEN’S WEARHOUSE Not “Warehouse.” It’s a joke. Get it?
I've never noticed this before
I’d originally written here “idiom trumps accuracy,” but I’ve developed an aversion to that verb.
As well, one doesn’t set a “new record.” One merely sets a record.
such an excellent point
unsolved mystery Once it’s solved, it’s not a mystery anymore, is it.
Fifty-five years and counting after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the conspiracy theories it gave birth to, I continue to caution writers against describing any other grassy knoll as a “grassy knoll.” It remains, I think, a distractingly potent term.
There is a world of difference between turning in to a driveway, which is a natural thing to do with one’s car, and turning into a driveway, which is a Merlyn trick.
If you love something passionately and vigorously, you love it no end. To love something “to no end,” as one often sees it rendered, would be to love it pointlessly. If that’s what you mean, then OK.
And when someone attempts to correct you, look that person square in the eye and say, “I’m using it as an adverb,” then walk away quickly. Works every time.
Streets lit by gaslight are gaslit. The past tense of the verb “gaslight”—as in that which Charles Boyer does to Ingrid Bergman in the eponymous 1944 MGM thriller by undermining her belief in reality to the point she believes she’s going mad—is “gaslighted.”
They’re not Brussel sprouts. They’re Brussels sprouts.
WHAT
Breath.
