by Ron Cooper | Aug 15, 2024
We humans are notorious for butchering our native tongue in strange and often humorous ways. But did you know there are terms for some of those linguistic faux pas? Let’s take a look at a few kinds of misheard and misused expressions: Malapropisms A malapropism is...
by Ron Cooper | Jul 20, 2020
Word confusion and language-related lost causes are no strangers to this site. We have explored the lost distinction between the words nauseous and nauseating, the often-lost letter d in the phrases “used to” and “supposed to,” and lost awareness about the definition...
by Ron Cooper | Jul 3, 2019
One of my favorite pastimes is to look for continuity errors in movies and television shows. I take great pleasure (rather embarrassingly) in noticing that a character’s wine glass shifts positions as shots change or that a medieval knight is wearing a wristwatch....
by Ron Cooper | Mar 21, 2019
Pardon Me—May I Beg Your Question? Often I hear newscasters say something like this: “Which begs the question—why was the senator naked in the first place?” Do they understand what “begging the question” really means? Nearly as common as the impropriety of...
