by Jamie Chavez | Nov 8, 2016 | Words & Language
The word until can be a preposition (it took until late that evening to unload the truck, for example) or a conjunction (we kept unloading until it got dark) and for many years I believed the shortened version of this word was ’til. You know—like ’til is a truncation...
by Jamie Chavez | Oct 31, 2016 | Words & Language
I admit I’m sometimes out of the loop. (Or behind the curve. Or whatever.) I don’t watch television and it’s only me up here in the swanky second-floor office in the pink house with the blue door, so whole fads pass me by. Whole memes pass me by. But I am up on my...
by Jamie Chavez | Oct 18, 2016 | Words & Language
My Facebook friends and I engaged in an etymological rabbit chase the other day. I do, seriously, get a kick out of this stuff, even if I really should be working instead of hopping around my office pulling reference books off the shelves. One friend wrote: Yesterday,...
by Jamie Chavez | Oct 10, 2016 | Words & Language
A book I’ve been working on has an interesting and lovely mention of terms of venery—which are a very special form of collective nouns—and it occured to me that it would be fun to take a look at them. You know what a collective noun is—team, committee, crowd are all...
by Jamie Chavez | Oct 3, 2016 | Words & Language
Words—and the way they are pronounced—can be such funny things. And people are often passionately attached to their own interpretation, even if they’re … well … wrong. (Like the pronunciation of Van Gogh. Look it up; you may be surprised.) The Irishman and I have done...
