August 4, 2009
Something happened when I turned thirty-six. No, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream didn’t immediately show up on my thighs ten minutes after I ate it. That happened when I turned thirty (and I’m still a little upset about it). For some inexplicable reason, during my thirty-sixth year comma usage became an enigma. As an English [...]
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November 6, 2008
In David Foster Wallace’s article entitled “Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars Over Usage,” the late novelist, essayist, and part-time college instructor asks: “Did you know that probing the seamy underbelly of U.S. lexicography reveals ideological strife and controversy and intrigue and nastiness and fervor on a nearly hanging-chad scale?” Foster was himself a [...]
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