This morning, out for a walk in wintry weather, I discovered a young student from the Northwestern School of Music struggling on the icy sidewalk while carrying a double bass. "Excuse me," said I, as our paths crossed, "but have you ever considered taking up the harmonica?" He took it, as the Victorians say, in good part. My model here was Herbert Beerbohm Tree, the actor and older half-brother of Max Beerbohm, who once came upon a mover bent almost double because of the grandfather clock he was toting on his back. "My good sir," Beerbohm Tree is supposed to have said, "wouldn't it be much more convenient to own a wristwatch." More ... 

For years now, I have been unable to get out of my head the memory of a simple classified ad that I once read in the local newspaper of my rural Virginia county. The ad, in the "Giveaway" section, was written in the hope of finding "a Christian home for our dog." More ... 

As a barefoot boy sitting on the banks of the Mississippi River, Samuel Langhorne Clemens watched stern-wheeler boats churning the muddy waters, and he heard the leadsmen sounding the depth of the river by calling out to the captains, "By the deep six ... by the mark five ... by the deep four ... by the mark three." When the river bottom was only two fathoms, or twelve feet, down, he would hear the lusty cry "by the mark twain." Long after he left the Mississippi, and after various careers as a riverboat pilot, prospector, and printer, Sam Clemens, now a journalist, contributed an article to the Nevada Territorial Enterprise on February 3, 1865, and signed it with a new name — Mark Twain. More ... 

What is a spoonerism? A spoonerism is what happens when your tongue gets twisted and the sounds that come out are not what you tried to say. Spoonerisms are phrases, sentences, or words where the sounds get swapped. Usually this happens by accident, particularly if you're speaking fast. More ... 

Streetlights and neon shone through me at night
and cars wailed past my window. I swam
in an underground pool and the blue smell of chlorine
rose off my body. More ... 

Although few people can complain of another's grammatical mistakes with impunity, that is, without revealing their own, we are hopeful that "Grumbling About Grammar" will encourage us all to pay more heed to how the language is used — by ourselves as well as by others — while bettering our ability to speak and write it.

adopt Misused for adapt. • Maybe you'll need a little time to adopt to the Indian English, but that's all. Use adapt. [Welcome to India] • On the basis of this point, there is no reason why Western companies cannot successfully adopt to Japanese practices. USE adapt. [Management First] • Universities and other traditional institutions of education must therefore also change and adopt to new conditions and societal needs. USE adapt. [Suranaree University of Technology]

To adopt means to take into one's own family through legal means; to choose and follow a course of action; to take up and use as one's own; to take on or assume. To adapt means to make suitable or fit for a specific use. More ... 

We all know far too well how to write everyday English, but few of us know how to write elegant English — English that is expressed with music as well as meaning, style as well as substance. The point of this feature is not to suggest that people should try to emulate these examples of elegant English but to show that the language can be written with grace and polish — qualities that much contemporary writing is bereft of and could benefit from.

Love. We are early taught to say it. I love you. We are trained to the thought of it as if there were nothing else, or nothing else worth having without it, or nothing worth having which it could not bring with it. Love is taught, always by precept, sometimes by example. Then hate, which no one meant to teach us, comes of itself. It is true that if we say I love you, it may be received with doubt, for there are times when it is hard to believe. Say I hate you, and the one spoken to believes it instantly, once for all.

Say I love you a thousand times to that person afterward and mean it every time, and still it does not change the fact that once we said I hate you, and meant that too. It leaves a mark on that surface love had worn so smooth with its eternal caresses. Love must be learned, and learned again and again; there is no end to it. Hate needs no instruction, but waits only to be provoked ... hate, the unspoken word, the unacknowledged presence in the house, that faint smell of brimstone among the roses, that invisible tongue-tripper, that unkempt finger in every pie, that sudden oh-so-curiously chilling look — could it be boredom? — on your dear one's features, making them quite ugly. Be careful: love, perfect love, is in danger. — Katherine Anne Porter, The Necessary Enemy More ... 

Whereas a witticism is a clever remark or phrase — indeed, the height of expression — a "dimwitticism" is the converse; it is a commonplace remark or phrase. Dimwitticisms are worn-out words and phrases; they are expressions that dull our reason and dim our insight, formulas that we rely on when we are too lazy to express what we think or even to discover how we feel. The more we use them, the more we conform — in thought and feeling — to everyone else who uses them.

(take) appropriate (corrective) action This ponderousness phrase will stem one person's drive while it saps another's desire. From such a phrase, only dull-minded deeds and uninspired acts may result, which is quite likely all that the user of it, bureaucrat he routinely is, either wishes for or can imagine. • If there's enough public pressure, they may rethink their defensiveness and begin to take corrective action. REPLACE WITH behave differently. • The bus driver was not exercising caution in this instance, and corrective action has been taken. REPLACE WITH he was fired. • By the time someone decides to take corrective action, the customer may be in too deep. REPLACE WITH act. • The district will take appropriate action to ensure such occurrences do not continue. REPLACE WITH do what it must. More ... 

Words often ill serve their purpose. When they do their work badly, words militate against us. Poor grammar, sloppy syntax, misused words, misspelled words, and other infelicities of style impede communication and advance only misunderstanding. But there is another, perhaps less well-known, obstacle to effective communication: too many words.

is -ing delete. • What the kids are wanting is to be loved. What the kids want is to be loved. • We have gained a much better understanding of what providers are seeking from our networks, and we are looking forward to presenting our plan. We have gained a much better understanding of what providers seek from our networks, and we look forward to presenting our plan. • Today, millions of Americans with disabilities are engaging in productive, gratifying endeavors. Today, millions of Americans with disabilities engage in productive, gratifying endeavors. • Some are speculating that Apple's new device is a digital music product for its iTunes software, while others think Apple may unveil a PDA, a Web pad-or even a set top box. Some speculate that Apple's new device is a digital music product for its iTunes software, while others think Apple may unveil a PDA, a Web pad-or even a set top box. More ... 

Inadequate though they may be, words distinguish us from all other living things. Indeed, our worth is partly in our words. Effective use of language — clear writing and speaking — is a measure of our humanness. What's more, the more words we know and can correctly use, the broader will be our understanding of self, the keener our acquaintance with humankind.

bibulous (BIB-yah-les) adj. 1. very absorbent. 2. addicted to or fond of alcoholic beverages. More ... 

Each month, "Oddments and Miscellanea" will focus on a particular matter of faulty grammar, slipshod syntax, or improper punctuation. This month's admonition:

After the word more, do not use rather than when than alone is required. More ... 

Among the best written, if least read, books are those that we will be featuring each month in "On the Bookshelf." No book club selections, no best-selling authors are likely to be spoken of here. Best-selling authors, of course, are often responsible for the worst written books.

Lawrence Durrell: The Alexandria Quartet More ... 

This is not less important when the individual involved has been dead for over 400 years!! More ...