He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasimes, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography Holofernes in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/lll/lll.5.1.html) While neologisms such as…
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Let’s not overexaggerate – avoiding tautology
Former US president George W Bush caused linguists much amusement/annoyance during his time in office for his skilful use of tautology. We have Dubya to thank for such unnecessary terms as ‘to misunderestimate’ and for incontestable pearls of wisdom such…
Confusing commas
Here’s a quick question to exercise your brain: is the following statement true or false? Politicians, such as Donald Trump, are keen to dispense with conventional politics. Congratulations to those of you who said it was false. The above sentence…
Got to dash? Hyphens, en dashes and em dashes
These little lines cause more than a little confusion. Here’s a quick-fire introduction to how to use them. Hyphens Let’s start with hyphens, as they’re the easiest (at least in theory!). Hyphens are used exclusively to join parts of words,…
Making words mean what you want
‘[…] There’s glory for you!’ [Humpty Dumpty said.] ‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory,”’ Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’ ‘But “glory”…