Eric Scheske	Is there any word as versatile as fuck? Most commonly used as a transitive verb, it can also be used as an intransitive verb (Go fuck yourself) and a noun (That fuck stole my money). It can even be used as a gerund, as in Man, he gave us a good fucking, a statement uttered by one of my classmates in college after a particularly arduous exam. •
Michael J. Sheehan	The human mind is constructed in such a way that it leaps into action when it encounters something incomplete. It pulses and throbs and weaves until it has constructed a scenario from a whisper, a shadow, a blip of light, a hint of movement. It connects dots that are pure figments of the imagination. Stark reality insists that some things will never be known or understood, but our inventive lobes quiver in electrochemical indignation at the very idea. •
Edwin Battistella	Toni Morrison is (a) a mediocre contemporary writer, (b) a genius, (c) a noun, or (d) an adjective. That was not a question on the 2002 PSAT. But that test sparked a lively discussion of grammar and literature, when the Educational Testing Service adjusted the scores of 450,000 students who took the October 2002 PSAT. The students had been asked to identify the grammatical error in the sentence: Toni Morrison's genius enables her to create novels that arise from and express the injustices African Americans have endured. The correct answer was intended to be "no error." •

The February issue of The Vocabula Review is due online February 15.

 

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