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“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Everybody knows that proverb. Some people know that it was the English poet Alexander Pope who said it. Only he didn’t. As Ralph…
OK, take your seat. It’s quiz time. Now list three grammar rules you never heard of. Had you there for a second, didn’t I? How can you list them if…
My son Meilech has a friend who studiously cultivated his New Yorkese. Once, after hearing my wife speaking, he ran over to Meilech and said, “Your mothah’s got ACCENT!” Accent…
My father, z”l, once heard someone complain, “I work like a dog a whole year, and comes Pesach, I don’t have a piece of bread on the table.” Without missing…
There I was, minding my own business. (Actually I was minding somebody else’s business — editing an article. But that’s my business.) Suddenly, something jumped out at me. It wasn’t…
There is absolutely no basis to the rumor I made up that the word Purim is derived from poorim — a plural of poor. Purim means lots, as in a…
A little bird told me to write this. OK, it wasn’t a bird. But it sounded like one. It was a tweet. (Disclosure: I use Twitter, but I never fully…
In simmering irony that barely keeps from boiling over, Mark Twain told how Huckleberry Finn battled his conscience over helping a slave escape. Huck had always been taught that slavery…
Pull up a chair. I’ve got a story for you. Back when I was a mail-order copywriter, one day I was drinking decaffeinated coffee. (It was before a fast day…
In early January, irate victims of cyberattacks, data breaches, and tech giants’ peddling of private information smashed computer network servers in Palo Alto, California. Waves of attacks spread to Menlo…
There’s a pernicious rumor going around that Chicken Little was wrong. However, unlike our little feathered friend, I didn’t run with Henny Penny and Ducky Lucky to tell the king…
Call me a perfectionist (thank you), but whenever I write, edit or proofread, I keep my reference toolkit close at hand. Along with essential dictionaries, thesauruses and usage manuals, I…
When my son Meilech was in his early single digits (I’m not good with numbers), his sisters celebrated birthdays in close succession. Feeling left out, Meilech asked, “When is my…
I lied. Maybe I’d better rephrase that. I exaggerated. Actually, a more precise term would be hyperbole — “the rhetorical device of deliberate overstatement” (Garner’s Modern English Usage). Vocabulary.com defines…
Even in the Pale of Settlement, some people had unsettled rivalries. Like the two merchants who met in a railway station in Belarus. “Where are you going?” “To Pinsk.” “Aha!…
What’s another word for thesaurus? That joke sums up the boon and bane of thesauruses. Why not “thesauri”? Garner’s Modern English Usage says that “thesaurus — a book or online…
When I was a boy, around this time of year in school, we had to write a composition: “How I Spent My Summer Vacation.” Since then, “spent” has taken on…
Ancient Mysteries Revealed: Discover Supernatural Secrets of How to Lose at Least 44 Types of Ugly Sins in Just 10 Days — Guaranteed! Simple Prayers and Rituals Make Your Soul…
The lowly cabbage is packed with nutrition. Mark Twain observed, “Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education.” Wild…
I was walking to shul one Shabbos and I saw an ID tag that someone had lost. It had his name and picture, and his title: ORDERLY. I thought of…