An Out-of-Character Solecism

This is a fairly common error, so the strip is worth mentioning, but the person who made the mistake would not have done it. Oh well, you wouldn’t have seen the strip if she had been her usual self.

The part about her not being a good driver is in character, though.

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You all know the sentence about the quick brown fox and the lazy dog. It uses every letter of the alphabet at least once. That’s a pangram. If you google “pangram” you can find all sorts of them. Here are a few pangrams that you won’t find from a search:

• Typeface designers: mix Zapf with Veljović and get quirky Béziers
• Philosophers: you go tell that vapid existentialist quack Freddy Nietzsche that he can just bite me, twice
• The uplifting grace of a cosmos in balance: Wham! Volcano erupts fiery liquid death onto ex-jazzbo Kenny G.

These are from an article about analyzing typefaces, a task slightly different from what pangrams are usually used for. If you’re into typefaces, the article is pretty interesting. It has to do with that pairs of letters look like together, something pangrams don’t care about.

https://www.typography.com/blog/text-for-proofing-fonts

When we compare things that we count, we say “fewer” and “number,” and when we measure them, we use “less” and “amount.” But what if the things are countable but you can’t count them?

Technically, potato chips are countable, so “number” would be appropriate.

But you’re not going to open the bag and count the chips, so maybe you can get away with using “amount.” But curmudgeon that I am, I’d be inclined to say “number of chips.”

What do you think?

Maybe I should say it’s a subtle difference (nah). The rule as mentioned in the comic is correct.

Use the relative pronoun “who” for people, and “that” for everything else.

Harrumpf.

“Loan” is a noun, “lend” is a verb. So Dagwood’s buddy has it wrong!

When you give someone a loan, you lend him something, typically money.