Grammar Moses: A lass, I knew her well

Mark Ludwig is a Daily Herald alumnus who now is a journalism professor at Cal State-Sacramento.

He posts on Facebook more than I could ever find time to, but those posts often remind me why I stuck with putting out a newspaper instead of teaching others to do it.

Mark's posts are often very funny - as are the responses he gets.

"Here's one I haven't seen before," he wrote, "'a lass' instead of 'alas.'"

Ah, he speaketh my language.

Here is a look at some of the responses he received:

"Don't be too hard on them," Dave Zuckerman replied. "After all, it's a doggy dog world."

Michael Althouse responded: "For all intensive purposes."

Bev Britton added her two favorite gaffes from 2021: "This is a perfect Segway to my new column format." (Yes, even capitalized.)

"And wah la, a new concept was formed."

I piled on with "We say what we here. People today lack cryptical thinking skills."

There is a word for this sort of misuse of words, of course: "acyrologia."

You might know it by its more common name: "malapropism."

In the same way many people who were perfectly capable of using a road map (but were never able to refold it properly) have been dulled by relying on Waze and Google Maps to the point of being hopelessly lost when their phone dies, students and people who write things for a living have developed a dependence on computer spell-checkers instead of keeping dictionaries and other reference materials nearby.

We don't have to think for ourselves as much anymore, so when we guess and the spell-checker recognizes it as A word - rather than THE word - and doesn't correct us, we look stupid.

We write what we hear, without really thinking about it.

What else aren't we thinking critically about?

Pique a boo!

My response to Mark's Facebook post contained both a homophone (here/hear) and a malapropism (cryptical/critical).

While I'm on the subject of homophones, I'm overdue for some reminders:

• Pique (v): to stimulate.

• Peak (n): the pointy top of a mountain.

• Peek (v): to look furtively.

The second half of this column could have inspired a Dr. Seuss book. (Please note that I'm not listing all of a word's parts of speech.)

• Phase (n): a stage in a series of events.

• Faze (v): to disturb.

• Raise (v): to bring up.

• Raze (v): to tear down.

• Haze (n): a state of mental confusion.

• Hayes (n): Arlington Heights Mayor Tom Hayes, who has always seemed pretty clearheaded to me.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/executive editor of the Daily Herald. You can buy Jim's new book, "Grammar Moses: A humorous guide to grammar and usage," at

grammarmosesthebook.com. Write him at

jbaumann@dailyherald.com and put "Grammar Moses" in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.