Style and usage

What do quarterback Tim Tebow and federal judge Robert Bork have in common?

What do quarterback Tim Tebow and federal judge Robert Bork have in common?

January 19, 2012 Pop culture

Tebow Tebowing (image from www.andpop.com) It’s been a while, but pls clarify is now officially back in action, and residing at the new and improved website for Rosky Legal Education. I’ve posted before on the verbification of nouns, especially techie nouns like blog. Imagine my surprise when I opened the NY Times this weekend and [...]

Read the full article →
Obama talks politics, life with Leno

Obama talks politics, life with Leno

October 26, 2011 Style and usage

It’s been way too long!  pls clarify has been on extended hiatus, but we are back in action. I’ve just seen a misplaced modifier that I can’t keep to myself.   Here it is, the offending CNN headline: Obama talks politics, life with Leno Perhaps I haven’t ingested enough caffeine yet this morning, but I just [...]

Read the full article →
Rupert Murdoch is offended by allegations of hacking

Rupert Murdoch is offended by allegations of hacking

July 6, 2011 Style and usage

Rupert Murdoch is in hot water. The British public is calling for blood after revelations that his tabloid, News of the World, used illegal and unethical means — hacking a missing teen’s cell phone and paying cops for information — to obtain material for stories.  Murdoch has responded by issuing a statement that purportedly condemns [...]

Read the full article →
If the Oxford comma could speak...

If the Oxford comma could speak…

June 30, 2011 Punctuation

Surely it would be invoking the famous Mark Twain line right about now: The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. Twitter was aflutter this week with rumors that the Oxford comma, aka the serial comma, has been abandoned by the very institution that gave it its name: Oxford University Press. Here’s how the Economist’s [...]

Read the full article →

Whomever? Whatever!

May 28, 2011 Style and usage

No grammatical justification for using “whomever” here. An attempt to sound civilized?

Read the full article →
Thou shalt not use the word "shall."

Thou shalt not use the word "shall."

May 26, 2011 Brief writing

So sayeth Bryan Garner, as explained in a recent post on Johnson, the Economist’s language blog. If you think that using shall makes contracts and statutes more official and clear, forget it. What’s wrong with shall? Let me count the reasons. It’s stuffy and exclusionary. It’s not used in everyday communication among humans. Most importantly, it has a few [...]

Read the full article →
I'm not nonplussed anymore. But I was. And I didn't know it.

I’m not nonplussed anymore. But I was. And I didn’t know it.

March 25, 2011 Style and usage

How I love my word-of-the-day email from Merriam-Webster. I am always getting mixed about what nonplussed means. I practically have to draw myself a diagram to remember that it means the opposite of what it suggests. So I was pleased to receive this reminder in my inbox today: nonplus, verb: to cause to be at a [...]

Read the full article →