Although the idiom to be cowed has nothing to do with Elsie the Cow, the use of corralled in a review of The…
04 February
22 April
2020
The word bureaucrat, derived from bureaucracy, acquired its negative connotation at the get-go. English takes bureaucracy from French bureaucratie, “government by bureaus.” The…
18 March
2020
How do you express numbers in your writing? When do you use figures (digits) and when do you…
12 February
2020
If they are, they must not know the meaning of sumptuous. English-speaking cooks who use unctuous to describe…
11 February
2020
A reader alerted me to a new use of the word unctuous that has escaped me until now:…
10 February
2020
Commonly seen on the Web is the misspelled phrase “bare with me.” The correct expression is “bear with…
27 January
2020
The phrase at the heart of the current impeachment process, quid pro quo, is unaltered Latin, but several…