@ sixes & sevens

To the sound of gnashing teeth

From the Daily News letters to the editor, July 31, 2008:

Vote? Why Vote?
Bronx: Why do we even need an election? Why not just coronate the guy now.

And why don't I just crown * you now, guy?

* Informal  To hit on the head.

block that neologism ... but not this one.

comfortability

We heard this from one of the Mets sportscasters the other day. Kiki had her head turned, but when I squeaked "Comfortability?" she said, "Oh, I'm glad you noticed that." This is a classic case of adding on to a word when there's a perfectly useful and shorter word in use -- in this case, comfort.

Mind you, I'm not against word elaboration when there's a semantic need for it. Kiki brought this to mind when she quoted someone in an article in the Times, who referred to an heirloom's divineness. Clearly this 'divine' object had not so much divinity as divineness.

But what then of this word that Kiki came up with: definity? What could be more cumbersome that definiteness -- no better than comfortability, really. And the pre-existing noun definition has by now taken on so many other meanings that a new word is certainly called for.

Not nearly so scary as your word choice

In point of fact, signor Alighieri also made significant stops in purgatory and heaven on his journey. But you wouldn't think to correct Jack Nicholson once he puts on that scary mask of high dungeon.

-- From a review of "The Bucket List" by Jan Stuart in the freebie AM New York

There was a lot to take issue with in this review, apart from the overall take which I suspect was on the mark. And in truth I have no idea whether the error was the author's or that of an overzealous (if undereducated) editor .. that is, supposing that AM New York employs editors.

High-flying beans?

High-flying beans?
Originally uploaded by sixes & sevens

Yaay! This chance sighting in Philadelphia as I was dashing to make the Chinatown bus back to New York won me a post on Apostrophism, a blog devoted to apostrophe abuse (and other similarly egregious errors). And adding this to the flickr group Grammar Girl has netted 184 views up to this point. Wow. Who knew there were so many fellow nitpickers out there?