English contains a wealth of what are colloquially called synonyms but really aren’t. Unfortunately, people who aren’t alert to subtle differences between the actual meanings of words will frequently select the wrong one for their purpose. One of the commonest cases involves the words honesty and candor. These frequently interchanged words are not really …
Category: language
Apr 17 2025
Inane Utterances
There’s a lot of talk in the air… but then, isn’t there always? It’s not new that everyone and his halfwit Uncle Herman are jabbering to beat the band. But what are they saying? Does it mean anything? Does it even make sense? I’ve been on a decades-long crusade against verbal offal – …
Mar 27 2025
Chronicles Of Language Abuse
High-energy physicists and nuclear chemists are as liable to misuse or distort a word as any untutored groundling: How Japan took the lead in the race to discover element 119 At the start of the new year, nuclear chemists Hiromitsu Haba and Kouji Morimoto slide precisely 119 Japanese yen into the collection …
Jan 23 2025
On The Lexical Warpath Again
I’m a stickler for good language, especially for using words in an accurate and precise fashion: i.e., according to their publicly understood meanings and not for any other purpose. Now and then, readers ask why I’m such a fanatic about it. The answer has always been simple: I value clarity. We cannot have clear …
Oct 03 2024
“What Do You Mean By That?”
That is the question every aspirant to public office ought to face every time he opens his mouth before a microphone. Yet it almost never happens. When some naïve citizen tries to press the question home, bodyguards appear out of the shadows and hustle him off to a locale less threatening to their client. …
Mar 18 2024
Shamelessness As A Political Weapon (UPDATED)
The key political asset of our time is the ability to tell any lie, however outrageous or absurd, with a perfectly straight face: eyes straight and flat, no lifting of either corner of the mouth, and no tightening of either nostril. Moreover, the liar must be able to maintain that solemn-as-a-judge expression through a …
Nov 27 2023
Notes On Extremistry
Yes, that’s a coinage. It’s in the vein of chemistry, which is the study of how chemicals behave. There’s also palmistry, which is the study of palm trees. (What’s that? Palmistry has nothing to do with palm trees? Well, never mind then.) However, the comparison isn’t all that close. What I mean to tag …
Jun 26 2023
Critics Circle…And Pounce
Despite my general disdain for the professional critic [“Those who criticize the most are the ones who create nothing.” – Helmut Schoeck] I must admit to a soft spot for acerbic reviewers with a creative flair for the English language. The following, taken from this review of a Guns ‘n’ Roses performance, tickled me …
Jun 21 2023
Frontiers In Doublespeak
If you’ve never visited the Baseline Essays collection, I exhort you to spend a couple of minutes there perusing what’s on offer. Yes, it’s all old blather from one of the wordiest people ever to infest the Web. Still, some of those pieces are actually…ahem…interesting. My focus today is on the wildly popular Dictionary …
May 15 2023
Verbal Subterfuges 2023-05-15
The slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. — George Orwell With the above, Orwell hit near but not quite on the mark. He crept closer to the bull’s-eye with his conception of Newspeak, in which a character posited that “thoughtcrime” could be made impossible simply by …
May 15 2023
Thought I Was Kidding, Did You?
When I wrote: Families are the fundamental building blocks of a stable society. Extended families—clans—are the best conceivable environment for the rearing of children, the perpetuation of a commercial forte, and the germination of new families and their ventures…. And all healthy families, which cherish life and bind their members to one another …
Feb 16 2023
The Misuse Of Cost
Typically, when you or I use the word cost, we mean the cost of something we must purchase, regardless of our desires. But cost, like need, has experienced a number of marginal and outrightly wrong uses in recent years. Here’s one for you: opportunity cost. You’ll hear that usage from time to time, …
Aug 26 2022
A Deficit Of Rationality
A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “That fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.” — Stephen Crane — I’m in one of those moods this morning. I could slather you with the reasons, but as I’m also feeling charitable, I’ll spare …
Jun 26 2022
Distortions And Evasions
My responsibilities to my Gentle Readers are more extensive than you might imagine. Yes, I’m here to provide analysis and commentary. Yes, I’m here to dissect the statements of others who don’t always express themselves clearly. But alongside those duties, I’m also here to pull the wool off your eyes – to tell you, …
Jun 10 2022
Trends In Babblage
Yes! It’s another Fran Porretto coinage! But it strikes me (of course) as one that’s of particular relevance to contemporary discourse. It is intuitively obvious, isn’t it? Steven Hayward at Power Line has produced a concise translation table for specifically left-wing babblage. I shan’t invade his copyright by reproducing it here. But Gentle …
May 23 2022
The Era Of The Illiterate
Apologies, Gentle Reader. I have no better word than illiterate with which to describe this sort of locution: “No I do not,” [New York City Mayor Eric] Adams said when asked at the “Bans Off Our Bodies” demonstration in New York City whether there should be any limitations on abortion. “I think …
May 22 2022
The War Of The Words
Yes, the title has been used by others. But the motif is critical to political combat in our time. Words are weapons. Words are tools. Define or be defined! — Michael Emerling I read in this morning’s news sweep that a Republican Congresswoman, Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ), has introduced a “Women’s Rights” …
Mar 03 2022
Let’s Mince Some Words!
I was just tooling around, surfing through my usual list of news and commentary sources, when I found this piece: I first noticed that the Democrats had shanghaied control of our language when the phrase “Global Warming” began to disappear. It was replaced almost overnight with ‘Climate Change,’ mostly because we had had …
Dec 20 2021
Shibboleths And Scare Talk
Political talk is mostly hot air, of course. Among other influences, politicians almost unanimously regard their own voices as the sweetest sound in the universe. They’ll fill whatever space is provided to them with as much blather as they can get away with – and it won’t necessarily mean anything in particular. So …
Nov 14 2021
How It’s Done
As liberals shy away from the word “woke,” the media has blamed Republicans’ negative use of the term for its downfall. What actually happened to “woke” may be more complicated, and cause problems for Democrats in coming elections. — Kelsey Koberg, Fox News This isn’t the first time the Right has successfully wrested …
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