Jim Baumann
-
Grammar Moses: Yinz know any good regionalisms?May 19, 2018 1:00 am - The Oxford English Dictionary is marking its 90th anniversary with, among other things, a celebration of regional language. As a student of English, I love to discover h...
-
Grammar Moses: Lost in translationMay 12, 2018 1:00 am - Maureen Donehey taught Spanish for 36 years, so she can spot a bad translation at 50 paces. "Here is a sign that has been in our neighborhood Target for months," she wro...
-
Grammar Moses: Do your Facebook friends requires a plural verb?May 05, 2018 1:00 am - Patrick Gerby shot a photo of a billboard in the Loop that rubs him the wrong way. "Not sure if you've seen the mini-billboards downtown near corners and bus stops. Does...
-
Grammar Moses: The family editionApr 28, 2018 1:00 am - Grammar and usage has been a topic of conversation in my family since I was a lad. I fondly recall having pun wars with Aunt Joyce and Uncle Rudy. And grammar, like any ...
-
Grammar Moses: Combining 'in' and 'to' can get you into troubleApr 21, 2018 1:00 am - Just as we all have our aversions to certain kinds of food or music, we all recoil at certain idioms or quirks of the language. At least my friends and pen pals do. Bill...
-
Grammar Moses: Where there are two wills, there is no wayApr 14, 2018 1:00 am - During the course of a weekend's activities, it's almost inevitable that I'll find a sign that contains a misspelling or a bad punctuation error. I've shared many of the...
-
Grammar Moses: Would you ask, "Where do I put the question mark?"Apr 07, 2018 1:00 am - Brits have lorries. We have trucks. Brits go to the loo. We use the john. Brits put their punctuation outside quotation marks. We usually do. Stephen Foust wrote to me a...
-
Grammar Moses: Toe that line, tote that bargeMar 31, 2018 1:00 am - I dabbled recently in idioms in which a homophone could be dropped in and the phrase still would make some sense. “Say your peace,” for instance, instead of “say your pi...
-
Grammar Moses: Speak with confidence (if you know what you're talking about)Mar 24, 2018 1:00 am - Think for a moment of how you would respond if your child were to ask for your opinion on something (as if that would ever happen). Now think of how you would respond if...
-
Grammar Moses: If the copy desk trims this column, will it be adding or taking away?Mar 17, 2018 1:00 am - I've mentioned before that I take no joy from parsing sentences. It was a source of night sweats in high school. I find parts of speech and cases more difficult to remem...