Hi, language lovers!
Happy March 4, and Happy National Grammar Day! (Get it? “March forth” and syntactically sin no more?) Join the revelry here:
http://www.nationalgrammarday.com/
Just don’t say we didn’t warn you about the earworm from that grammar song, okay?
We would have let you know all this earlier, but this is also National Procrastination Week. We learned that from Lifehacker, which has some handy information about anti-procrastination strategies. So check it out, when you get around to it, that is.
Personally, we’re waiting for National Perendination Week. “Perendinate,” the Oxford English Dictionary says, means to “defer until the day after tomorrow; to postpone for a day.”
As you may have heard, this was also supposed to be “Cuss-Free Week” in California, but the state Senate’s response was “Heck, No!” (Whew!)
http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_14503085
In other news, there’s a new episode of “A Way with Words,” featuring pet’s names, the original meaning of “snicklefritz,” the last word in the dictionary, why some wags push back from a meal saying, “I am sufficiently suffonsified,” and more.
https://www.waywordradio.org/sufficiently-suffonsified/
Also, linguist Geoffrey Nunberg’s has a great follow-up to Grant’s recent “On Language” column in the New York Times about the most beautiful words in English:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2142
Do you call the legume “chickpeas” or “garbanzo beans”? We’re taking a survey to find out of there is a regional difference in uses of the term:
As always, call or write if there’s a language topic you’d like to discuss on the air.
By the way, we bring you all this food for word-loving thought thanks to tax-deductible help from folks like you, so don’t procrastinate–and for Samuel Johnson’s sake, please don’t perendinate!
Drop by https://www.waywordradio.org/donate and chip in. You’ll get a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling, we promise.
Grammatically yours,
Martha and Grant
