Language & Grammar – Page 2

Why Master Sun Matters Today

Master Sun was a wise man. So wise that his famous treatise, The Art of War (aka The Art of Warfare), has been read, written about, critiqued, and discussed for roughly 2,400 years. It has been used as a model of strategy and leadership for the military, for business, romance, sports, and for politics. And, like Machiavelli’s The Prince, it has often been misused, misunderstood, and misinterpreted for those purposes.* It’s a short book: a mere 13 chapters written in generally brief aphorisms. And, very … click below for more ↓

English as She is Spoke

2021-01-26 2021-01-28 Books & Reviews / Grammar / Language & Grammar / Meaning of words / Style & usage / Translations & translating / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

One of the more delightful books in my personal library is a reprint of the 1883 American edition of English as She Is Spoke, described by Wikipedia as, …intended as a Portuguese–English conversational guide or phrase book; however, as the “English” translations provided are usually inaccurate or incoherent, it is regarded as a classic source of unintentional humour in translation. Even a quick glance at its suggested English phrases and you’ll see the humour. It reads more like a guide for the speech of the … click below for more ↓

Point to Point: The Book From the Ground

2021-01-06 2021-01-06 Arts / Books & Reviews / Books about books / Culture / Language & Grammar / Meaning of words / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

A few years back, during one of our Toronto mini-vacations, I was browsing in the shop of the Art Gallery of Ontario, and I came across a small book that had no words, just pictures. No, it wasn’t a book with pictures of artworks or photographs: it was a story, told entirely through common icons, symbols, and emoticons. Pictograms, looking not unlike a modernized version of Egyptian hieroglyphs. There wasn’t even a book title on the cover. There were no instructions, no guides, no hints, … click below for more ↓

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra

2021-01-03 2021-01-03 Books & Reviews / Language & Grammar / Meaning of words / Pop Culture / Reading & Literacy / Style & usage / TV / What I'm Reading Now / Words & etymology4 Comments

We recently watched the Darmok episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, my third time seeing it, and I was struck again at how brilliant and quirky it was. Possibly the best of all the ST:NG’s 178 episodes. And, apparently, a lot of other fans agree with my assessment. Wikipedia describes it: The alien species introduced in this episode is noted for speaking in metaphors, such as “Temba, his arms wide”, which are indecipherable to the universal translator normally used in the television series to … click below for more ↓

Socialism, Communism, and Liberalism

2020-09-16 2020-09-16 International politics / Meaning of words / Politics / US Politics / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

Watching American political dramas like their presidential elections is both entertaining and frightening. Yet it is also strangely educational. it has taught me a basic tenet: Americans as a people know little to nothing about politics. Not just about international politics, but their own. It is a commonly held belief outside American borders that Americans are remarkably unaware of the history, politics, leaders, or even existence of other nations, but are often equally ignorant of their own. There are far too many YouTube videos interviewing … click below for more ↓

The Hermeneutics of Suspicion

2020-08-22 2020-08-22 Local media / Media / Politics / Style & usage / What I'm Reading Now / Words & etymologyLeave a comment

The title is a phrase I encountered while reading Mark Thompson’s excellent book on political rhetoric, Enough Said: What’s Wrong With the Language of Politics? Thompson’s book is both about the current and historic use of political rhetoric (from Aristotle forward), but also about the role of journalists in covering it. Thompson — a former new editor and executive in the BBC and now with the New York Times — maintains we are in “a crisis of political language” that comes from a combination of … click below for more ↓

Bring Back the Yogh and the Thorn

2020-08-20 2020-08-20 Fonts & Layout / Language & Grammar / Typography / Words & etymology / Writing & cursive3 Comments

Ye Olde Shoppe. We’ve all seen the signs like this. Ever wonder why it says “ye” instead of “the”? Me, too, at least way back then. I’ve known the answer a long time now from decades of reading about English, about typography, Chaucer, and about Middle English orthography. Spoiler alert: It was pronounced “the.” Not “ye.” The “ye” was actually spelled “(thorn)e” — thorn was a letter in the Old and Middle English alphabets that stood for “th.” It started out looking like a lowercase … click below for more ↓

Juet’s Journal in Word format

2020-07-28 2020-07-29 Blog & Blogging / Books & Reviews / England and Britain / History & Biography / My Writing / Personal Reminiscences / Typography / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

For those readers interested in the voyages of the late-16th-early-17th century adventurer, Henry Hudson, or in the European explorations of North America, I have recently scanned and edited a copy of Juet’s Journal into Word format and placed it online here. Here is my website on Henry Hudson, too. I haven’t done much with it of late, but that may be slowly changing as I find I have more time these days, during my recovery. The journal documents how Hudson and his crew ‘discovered’ parts … click below for more ↓

Reading Catullus

2020-07-18 2020-07-18 Books & Reviews / Classics / Language & Grammar / Style & usage / Translations & translating / What I'm Reading Now2 Comments

With the extra time to read on my hands these days, I’ve been dipping again into the poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus, Roman poet around the time of Julius Caesar. I’ve written in the past about reading Horace, a somewhat later Roman poet whom I greatly admire. I like to pick up a translation of Horace’s Odes or Epodes and read a few lines, maybe a whole poem, every now and then. Horace can be quite insightful and inspirational. Not so much Catullus for me. … click below for more ↓

Johnson’s words

2020-01-18 2020-01-18 Books & Reviews / Computers & Programming / Language & Grammar / Style & usage / Theme & Coding / What I'm Reading Now / Words & etymologyOne Comment

I have recently been reading through the David Crystal anthology of words from Samuel Johnson’s dictionary (Penguin, 2006), attempting to cross-reference it with entries in the Jack Lynch anthology (Levenger Press, 2004), comparing how the two editors chose their selections, and to see how the book designers chose to present them. Yes, I know: reading dictionaries isn’t a common pastime, but if you love words, then you do it. In part, I’m doing so for the sheer delight of the reading (Johnson’s wit shines through … click below for more ↓

Books, writers, words, and competencies

2020-01-08 2020-01-08 Books & Reviews / Media Issues / Typography / What I'm Reading Now / Words & etymologyOne Comment

I have always believed that any good, competent and credible writer can be judged (if judge people we must, and yet we do) by the books on his or her desk. Yes, books: printed hardcopy, paper and ink. I’ll go into why books are vastly superior to online sources a bit later (although I suspect my readers already know why…). Although I am no longer in the media or much of an active writer these days, I believe I can still determine the craft, the … click below for more ↓

Of dictionaries, memories, and friends

2020-01-07 2020-01-07 Books & Reviews / Language & Grammar / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / What I'm Reading Now / Words & etymology / Writing & FictionLeave a comment

When a copy of this selection from Samuel Johnson’s famous dictionary arrived last week, I was delighted, and immediately reminded of my late, and well-loved friend, Bill. He would have appreciated the book, chuckled over Johnson’s witty definitions, delighted in the words at play. We would have sat around the kitchen counter, alternately reading random definitions from the book, in between sips of wine. Like every good writer I’ve ever known, Bill loved words, puns, wit, and the interplay of language. Sadly, Bill died of … click below for more ↓

Decades, centuries and millennia

2019-12-31 2019-12-31 Critical Thinking / Culture / History & Biography / Logic and reason / Media / Style & usageOne Comment

January 1 is NOT the start of a new decade. To the CBC and the other arithmetically-challenged media who insist otherwise: it isn’t. You just don’t understand how to count to 10. No matter how you spin it, 9 years is not 10. And even if it was, starting or ending a decade or any other period of time has no magical significance. Neither history nor culture, neither politics nor science work along calendrical timelines and our own calendar is an arbitrary construct for convenience … click below for more ↓

The dictionary of delight

2019-07-06 2023-07-01 Books & Reviews / Language & Grammar / Style & usage / What I'm Reading Now / Words & etymologyOne Comment

Mohocks, Samuel Johnson informed us in 1755, was the “name of a cruel nation of America given to ruffians who infested, or rather were imagined to infest, the streets of London.” Moky meant dark, as in weather. Gallimatia was nonsense; talk without meaning. Commination was a threat; a denunciation of punishment, or of vengeance. Tachygraphy was the art of quick writing. Eftsoons meant soon afterwards. Saltinbanco was a quack or a mountebank. A dotard was a man whose age impaired his intellects (no Donald Trump … click below for more ↓

Don Quixote times three

2019-07-02 2019-07-02 Books & Reviews / Classics / Language & Grammar / Translations & translating / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

At roughly the same time Shakespeare was writing and performing King Lear, Measure for Measure, Othello and Macbeth (1604-1605), Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was publishing the first part (52 chapters) of his satiric novel, Don Quixote, or more properly titled (in English), The Ingenious Gentleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha. The second part (another 74 chapters) was published in 1615, roughly two years after Shakespeare’s final play, The Two Noble Kinsmen (co-written with John Fletcher). While it was probably always intended as a single novel, … click below for more ↓