24 August 2010
How can I refer to the music of Samuel and me using the possessive case? ‘Samuel and my music?’ Doesn’t sound right to me. ‘Samuel’s and my music?’ Maybe if we each have our separate music, but not really if we share the music. ‘Our music?’ Not specific enough. […]
14 August 2010
When writing in Latin (and sometime I should hope to add a blog in Latin—but don’t wait with over-bated breath), I like to use mediaeval Latin diacritics, which aid in reader comprehension—without using a juvenile macron over each and every long vowel, which in any case probably wasn’t distinguished from short vowels after the Classical [...]
6 April 2010
Syntactical ambiguity refers to how the syntax, or grammar, of a phrase or sentence can be taken more than one way. Usually it’s obvious to native speakers which meaning is meant.[…]
3 April 2010
Today is Holy Saturday, which commemorates the Sabbath that Christ rested in the tomb.
Some people have a problem with the established, traditional view of Holy Week, arguing that because Jesus predicted that he would be in the earth ‘three days and three nights’ (Matthew 12:40), he could not have been crucified on a Friday. However, the problem is not with the traditional view but in interpretation and translation of ancient languages.[…]
22 February 2010
I’m just reading the paper by the American Dialect Society (PDF) about the word of the year (2009) and the word of the decade (2000–2009).
The word of the decade was google. The word of the year was tweet. But there are some other interesting winners. […]
25 January 2010
I was thinking about tongue-twisters the other day. I think the most effective ones are two or three words long. Also, there are a lot of tricky two-word phrases—it’s not just a small few that are hard to say. […]
English