A Losing Battle, But It’s Not Over Yet

Notwithstanding, the grammar geek is correct—about the grammar. Linguistic change happens, so I can’t entirely agree about the decline of western civilization.

Not only is he correct, but I saw this the same day:

Maybe the geeks are winning!

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I don’t need to say much about this one…

I don’t hear the word “graffito” very much.

Special because in this case all the nouns are proper nouns.

In case you don’t know, the character on the right is named “Rat.” And the technical name for this is “back-formation.”

So how’s your name? Could it be a verb? Mention it in the comments.

Many words have more than one meaning. You can get humor by thinking up a situation when either meaning can make sense and you capitalize on the misunderstanding. How would you state the definition of these two meanings?

However, you don’t want to do this when you explain something. The rule is to be clear!

Whenever you write expositorily, spend some time thinking about how you might be misunderstood, and write to prevent the misunderstanding.

A minced oath is a mild substitute for a nastier profanity. Myself, I avoid both the real thing and the mild version.

I say what I actually mean. Consequently, my English is a pretty good means of communication.