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NO, that wasn’t a typo. Allusions can be elusive, but they’re not illusionary. An allusion is an indirect reference. To allude to something is to hint to it. Allusions can…
Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this. (As Leo Rosten said, old jokes are like old friends.): A guy walks into a bank and hands the teller a note: “I…
Sometimes, my wife asks me to taste something she’s cooking. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. One time, when I hesitated a second, she said, “You…
The President has regained the capital. STOP: I am neither making any prediction nor promoting any candidate for election. House rules on this column declare: “Leave your politics at the…
As I write this, I’m wearing a face mask. I’m in my own room, at my own desk. And I’m sitting more than six feet away from anyone. So why…
I don’t know what kind of party my grandson Yaakov Chaim (AKA Yankel) was planning. Alas, I was 6,000 miles away, in Brooklyn. But two days before his sixth birthday,…
Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend,” said a great wise guy. “Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.” Stop. Hold your fire. Yes, I…
All hail the conquered hero. A battle-weary wordslinger has hung up his guns. Too young to remember the Old West? “Hang up your guns” means “to put aside in disuse;…
OK, so there’s no such place as Glub, N.Y. But if you think the sound of someone trying to talk underwater is weird, how about these actual place names? No…
I got caught in the crossfire of a dispute at the shtieblach in Beis Yisrael, Yerushalayim. Shtieblach is the plural of shtiebel — literally, a small house. It refers to…
Get out your pencil. It’s quiz time: Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb? No, he’s not. Ulysses S. Grant and his wife are entombed — not buried — in sarcophagi…
If you think meme is the sound of an opera singer warming up, you are blessedly innocent to the ways of the web. Memes are images or phrases that are…
About 30 years ago, I went into a shop in Manhattan and ordered two cups of black coffee — one of them decaffeinated. Before handing me the coffee, the Asian…
My grandson Avraham Yitzchak came home from day camp one day, zonked from obstacle races. Frankly, that was surprising. When he was 2, and a training wheel fell off his…
Ever have one of those decades? Has it ever seemed you just can’t win for losing? Things just seem to go haywire? Haywire is a low-tech term for out of…
“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…