Beth Greenapple, Wordsmith

03/12/2017

Here is a link to a website I like. I don't always agree with Anne Curzan. However, I value her dedication to the cause of language and her willingness to wrestle with the tension between stasis and change in a living entity, the English language.

http://michiganradio.org/programs/thats-what-they-say

Funner, snuck, and LOL are all things that we're hearing people say these days. That's What They Say is a weekly segment on Michigan Radio that

09/26/2016

Carson Lyons shared this with me ages ago...

English can be weird...

01/10/2016

Professor Anne Curzan reported this morning on the radio that "they" was voted a Word of the Year in its category at a conference of language mavens (I apologize for not remembering which conference or category). "They" is a pronoun, of course. Traditionally used to refer to more than one person, it is now in vogue as a singular pronoun for individuals who reject the idea of binary gender assignment.

12/12/2015

Cute!

This is so fresh.

03/05/2015

LESS milk and FEWER sugar lumps. Definitely my pettiest peeve!

03/04/2015

I admit it: I do drive my family and friends crazy. I'm a grammar fiend. So, sue me!

03/04/2015

Need I say more?

This is why we love English.

12/16/2014

Around this time of year, my students (of almost any age) used to ask me how to spell the name of the Jewish holiday that begins tonight. I would answer (from right to left) Chet, Nun, Chaf, Hey or, in Hebrew: חנכה
"We mean in English!"
"Oh. Well English spellings of other languages are called 'Transliterations.' The English alphabet is used to represent the sounds, as closely as possible, to the source language, in this case, Hebrew (though some scholarly transliteration systems do focus on historic letter equivalents). So, you are right if you spell the word in English and someone reading it out loud pronounces it correctly."

Thus, considered correct English spellings of the holiday are:
Chanuka(h)
Hanuka(h)
Chanukka(h)
Hanukka(h)
Channuka(h)
Hannuka(h)
Sometimes the gutteral sound in Hebrew of the Chet is represented in English by /ch/ and other times with an /h/ that has a dot underneath.

Happy Chanukah!

12/16/2014

Epic!

Click To Enlarge

12/14/2014

It's true.

You do not need an apostrophe when writing:
- 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, etc.
- CDs, PhDs, MAs, etc.
- As, Bs, Cs, Ds . . .Xs, Ys, Zs
- plurals (unless it may be confused with another word, i.e. As = A’s)

12/14/2014

My mother once said, "F***!" right in front of her three just barely double-digit aged children, when she accidentally burned herself removing a pan from a hot oven. My brothers looked at her in shocked silence, their eyes wide, mouths agape. She started to laugh.

"What's the matter? You thought I didn't know that word? I have known it longer than you've been alive. I just save it for appropriate occasions!"

I think she got the feeling even if she didn't have the name for it. Courtesy of Chava Nikki Bachle-Docks, I share with you the name of that wonderful feeling.

Ofcourse we don't recognize this feeling :)

12/10/2014

Thanks, Carol Knoll, for this silly (there is no Future Perfect Subjunctive) grammar joke from Grammarly.

Don’t kill the joke.