A moment ago I became paranoid that, when wanting to write about a punctuation mark, I'd end up using the word for a very sad medical problem! Is it "comma" or "coma"? It's funny how one letter difference can be a completely different thing. I had it right this time—"comma."
Recently I noticed someone in a forum unintentionally writing "defiantly" when he meant to write "definitely."
I mention this not because I care if people make spelling errors (well, except for at work when I am asked to find those), I just love to marvel at how language works, origins of words, and how that influences things. For instance, in Roy Peter Clark's book The Glamour of Grammar, he mentions how both words "glamour" and "grammar" derive from the same word.
Showing posts with label etymology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label etymology. Show all posts
Monday, July 8, 2013
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Grammar Love
Yesterday grammar made the news—on the homepage of Yahoo News to be exact.
This week I started reading The Glamour of Grammar (2010) by Roy Peter Clark. I'm really enjoying it! It's a book that celebrates the intricacies of language with a little bit of how-to in it.
As I read the book and talked with our editorial intern last week, I realized more that words and language are exciting to me in the same way my artistic friend gets excited about colors and design, and in the same way that my hubby loves board games that are deep in strategy. And also in the same way that I see the contestants who did well on So You Think You Can Dance feel about the art of dance and performance.
So yesterday I went to Barnes & Noble and bought a copy of Writer's Digest magazine. I've never bought a single issue of a magazine since it's usually twice the price of one issue of a subscription, but this time I felt compelled. It's a "Top 10" theme that includes enough content about non-fiction this issue and I'm enjoying it. Unfortunately (for me), other issues of the magazine usually covers mostly fiction.
An ancient lit professor in college loved to talk about the Oxford English Dictionary that showed etymology. He was a happy guy who made everyone laugh with phrases he made up. Since then, every once and a while I've wondered if I should get that type of dictionary for fun. The author of the book I'm reading mentioned the dictionary in that way. We'll see.
This week I started reading The Glamour of Grammar (2010) by Roy Peter Clark. I'm really enjoying it! It's a book that celebrates the intricacies of language with a little bit of how-to in it.
As I read the book and talked with our editorial intern last week, I realized more that words and language are exciting to me in the same way my artistic friend gets excited about colors and design, and in the same way that my hubby loves board games that are deep in strategy. And also in the same way that I see the contestants who did well on So You Think You Can Dance feel about the art of dance and performance.
So yesterday I went to Barnes & Noble and bought a copy of Writer's Digest magazine. I've never bought a single issue of a magazine since it's usually twice the price of one issue of a subscription, but this time I felt compelled. It's a "Top 10" theme that includes enough content about non-fiction this issue and I'm enjoying it. Unfortunately (for me), other issues of the magazine usually covers mostly fiction.
An ancient lit professor in college loved to talk about the Oxford English Dictionary that showed etymology. He was a happy guy who made everyone laugh with phrases he made up. Since then, every once and a while I've wondered if I should get that type of dictionary for fun. The author of the book I'm reading mentioned the dictionary in that way. We'll see.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)