Grammar Moses: Did I shortchange you on men of action? Absolutely.

My, you're an attentive crowd. Or you're the type of readers who love quizzes.

I wrote last week about U.S. presidents who are - or were - men of action by virtue of their verb-like names.

I clearly didn't think hard enough when staring at a list of names. I came up with Trump, Ford, Grant, Pierce, Bush, Hoover and Polk. Yes, I took liberties with a homophone (get your mind out of the gutter) and a colloquialism to pad my list.

Some of you took it a step further.

"If you're going to accept homophones, you missed two: Rutherford B. Hayes (haze a freshman) and Zachary Taylor (tailor a suit)," wrote Scott Zapel of Glen Ellyn.

Pete Petersen of Des Plaines suggested I add Millard Fillmore to the list.

While I'm at it, I forgot the greatest verb name of all, a man who for the want of a few chads would have won the presidency in 2000: Al Gore.

'Unique' revisited

Here is further evidence that last week was an off week for me and that Marty Robinson of Prospect Heights was clearly more on his game.

I made a big hairy deal about how "unique" is an absolute, like "pregnant," and there are no shades of uniqueness.

"I agree that unique is unique, but it can be modified, i.e., almost unique or nearly unique," Marty wrote.

Allow me to expand on my previous statement: "Unique" is an absolute. Once something is unique, it cannot be more than unique - as in "unique." But something can be so rare as to be "almost unique."

To avoid arguments you might consider sticking with words such as "rare" and "unusual."

The discussion of absolutes reminds Eric Hansen of Lake in the Hills of a clever writer for "The Big Bang Theory."

One character, Stuart, said: "I'm afraid you couldn't be more wrong."

The other, Sheldon said: "More wrong? Wrong is an absolute; there are no shades of wrongness."

Stuart replied: "Of course there are ... calling a tomato a vegetable is wrong. Calling it a suspension bridge is very wrong."

Quick quiz

Can you come up with a five-letter word that is pronounced as just one of the letters? (see answer at the end of the column)

Fun with plurals

We wrote a story the other day about a debate in Arlington Heights over whether to allow cellular antennas on water towers.

The headline on our website referred to them as "antennae."

I knew that didn't look right.

The Associated Press Stylebook doesn't rule on whether to use "ae"or a plain old "s."

So I looked at some of my favorite language sources: the Oxford English Dictionary, Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage and Garner's Modern American Usage. All three recommend using "antennas" as the plural for transmitting towers and "antennae" for insectile feelers.

Your answer

For those of you with the patience to read about antennas before looking here for an answer to the quiz, thank you.

For those of you instant gratification types who merely skipped down for an answer to the quiz, at least I made you read this extra paragraph as punishment.

The answer is: queue.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.