by Jamie Chavez | Mar 12, 2018 | Words & Language
The day the Irishman was born, his mother watched the St. Patrick’s Day parade from her room in the Rotunda Hospital overlooking O’Connell Street and the Parnell monument. I’d love to be in Dublin for this parade, although they say some of the best St. Patrick’s Day...
by Jamie Chavez | Apr 18, 2016 | Words & Language, Your Editor Says …
I’ve noticed a lot of people of a certain age tend to use the indefinite article an before the word historic (or historical): The radio announcer said, “It was an historic event.” This is actually incorrect usage, y’all, though I think I may have been taught this in...
by Jamie Chavez | Apr 14, 2016 | Books You Might Like, Words & Language
Prefixes like “in,” “non,” “un,” “dis,” and “im” make words negative, yes? There may be grammatical particulars I am not addressing here, but generally speaking. So you have a positive word like “restrained,” and you add the prefix “un” to get a negative:...
by Jamie Chavez | Apr 4, 2016 | Words & Language
A writer friend of mine posted a little meme* on Facebook the other day: Never make fun of someone if they mispronounce a word. It means they learned it by reading. I doubt there’s any data to support this but I feel the truth of it in my bones, having been a child...
by Jamie Chavez | Apr 30, 2015 | Your Editor Says …
I was reading my Entertainment Weekly at lunch the other day (“12 Things You Never Knew About Harry Potter”) and was positively gobsmacked by number nine: The Half-Blood Prince 9. To try to ensure consistency within the books, and keep track of characters, spells, and...
