Presidents Day

Is it Presidents Day today? Officially we are celebrationg George Washington's birthday, which was February 22, 1732. So is it President's Day with or without the apostrophe? Common usage says its OK not to use the apostrophe, since we now use nouns as adjectives anyway. But the dictionary and word historians say it should be Presidents' Day, even though legally and officially it is only Washington's birthday. Lincoln's Birthday was never a federal holiday, though many states celebrated it and all the car dealerships have commercials with both Lincoln and Washington. Four US presidents have birthdays in February: Lincoln, Feb. 12, Washington, Feb. 22, William Henry Harrison, Feb. 9, and Ronald Reagan, Feb. 6. So I conclude that Macy's is correct when the advertise their sale as

Presidents' Day One Day Sale.

Are you a Knave?

There aren't many words in English which start with "KN." I've been wondering where the K comes from in Knave, Knight, Knack, Knicknack, Knee, and Knife. They seem superflous somhow, but then again, without the K, they look very strange: nave, nack, nee, nife, and night.
Knight has a lot of silent letters. It should really be spelled "nite."

Browsing thru these words I see that they come from Old High German.

Knave means a male servant, or a tricky deceitful person. I love the synonyms: rapscallion and scoundrel!

Call me naive, but at least I'm not a knave!

Inside Out and Upside Down

What is the opposite of Inside Out?

Inside in, or outside out?
Or is it rightside in or rightside out?

And what about upside down?

Downside down or upside up?

Would vertically aligned be the opposite, and vertically challenged a synonym for upside down?

And shouldn't they be hyphenated, anyway?!

I'm definitely Inside-out and Upside-down on this matter!

Uneek Spelling

OK,

I've been thinking about this for awhile. Don't you just hate that when orthography keeps you up at night?

Unique. I think this spelling is very misleading. I think it would be much more forthright to spell it u-n-e-e-k.

Where did Q come from? It's very unusual in English, very strange... stranger... alien, even!

And when we pair it with U, which we usually do it sounds like "kw" as in Queen. Very queer, indeed.

So there is just no reason to put the QUE on the end of that word. Let's just go with uneek. That's unambiguous. I can't think of any other way to pronounce it.

All in favor say, Aye. Now there's another word we need to re-spell...

A Jury of Your Piers

I know orthography doesn't count for anything anymore, but when I get an email from someone trying to sell me high priced products, I expect them to edit and correct their work. Once in a while I publish my blog with a misspelling, and I correct it as soon as possible. And if I were sending marketing material, it would be proofread first. I understand that spell-check will not find this mistake. "Pier" is a valid word, so the computer cannot know or care if someone has a pier full of boats or is referring to another person, considered equal in legal terms. And people might not notice, because pier sounds just like peer and both are nouns...

I am probably in the minority, but send me a sales pitch with such a glaring error and you lose all credibility in my eyes. I won't do business with you.

I am probably in the minority, because most people wouldn't notice the error, that I find so glaring. But I think people should be more careful with written documents.

Do I have any peers that agree with me?

Any piers?

The Demise of The King's English

The St. Pete Times had an interesting article about the Death of the English Language in yesterday’s paper, by Gene Weingarten. It was very funny.

Regarding the death of English, most people seemed unconcerned. Anthony Incognito, an average man in the street, said, “Between you and I, I could care less.”

Weingarten cites other examples of poor usage and blatant mistakes. He even criticizes something I thought was a definite improvement: the use of "alot" as a word describing an amount. He feels that newspapers should definitely use spell-checkers, especially ones which can detect that the word "pronounciation" is misspelled. He says it has been misspelled in several newspapers, including the Boston Globe and St. Paul Pioneer Press, as well as the Contra Costa, where it appears in a column apologizing for previous misspellings of the word!

Thanks, Gene, I'm LOL. Oops, is that correct?

I find it very ironic, that in the same newspaper, on the same day, I find a book review, of a new book, entitled, The Glamour of Grammar, a Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English, by Roy Peter Clark.

The author believes that the English language is magic, and that the words, grammar and glamour, both come from the same root. He also points out that "spell," can refer to the letters in a word, as well as to an enchantment.

I only read half the review and I want to go out and buy this book!

Coincidentally, I have also discovered a blog which highlights the agony and the ecstacy of words and language. It is called Throw Grammar from the Train. This is a BLOG of NOTE on blogger. I am so priveleged to share the same virtual space with this writer who claims she is a "nitpicker." (Jan Freeman.)

It will probably soon show up on my blog as one of the blogs I follow.

I used to say, so many books, so little time, now I can also add, so many blogs, so little storage space on my computer!

I guess the thing is, that we don't speak the King's English in America, which is actually just the US portion of the North American continent, anyway. The King is dead and English is very much alive and constantly evolving! Long live the grammarians!

Powerful Mistake

A client sent me a thank you letter (email, actually), recently. But she misspelled one word. It said
"I am greatful for all you do. Thank you."

Of course, I immediately see the error, but then I look at it and wonder if it is a mistake...

Of bonds and bondage

A bond connects you to someone or something.



Bondage is more like slavery or indebtedness.



Must be related to banns of marriage. Banns is a public announcement of marriage in a church. From Middle English.


Or is it bans?

Bans are things omitted or forbidden. So the bans of marriage, would be quite different. See, the philolog told you spelling was important!!!

Please choose (and spell) your words carefully!

Genius

This post is for geniuses only. See http://musinglog.blogspot.com.

Strate Thots

You know I’m a fanatic about grammar and spelling, but there are some reforms I do support. There are some U-G-Hs that could disappear and make the world a better place. I often write thru for through, tho for though, and thot for thought.

I can also live without the gh in straight. That would make it strait. It really should be strate. That looks really weird!

Okay, similarly, light should be lite.

Am I rite?