@Jan__Freeman

Longtime editor, originator of @bostonglobe’s The Word column, occasional blogger, recovering nitpicker. Now janfreeman at the sky blue site.

 Boston area
throwgrammarfromthetrain.blogspot.com
Joined December 2008
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Jesse Sheidlower catalogs endless permutations of the F-word bostonglobe.com/2024/11/26/o… via @BostonGlobe

The endless lexical fertility of the F-word - The Boston Globe

The expletive that really gives a [damn] has blossomed so widely, it needed a new compendium from Jesse Sheidlower.

bostonglobe.com
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Sometimes your ad is better without the proofreader.
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I would present this slightly differently: Grammar is grammar. A set of linguistic facts about language. Usage is social--like manners. A set of cultural facts about language.
ΧΡΙΣΤΌΦΟΡΟΣ bɝːd@CjgbVictoria29 Feb 2024
Replying to @PeterSokolowski
There's a role for prescriptive grammar, because people who haven't fully mastered the prestige dialect find it useful to do so.
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I have a little Christmas story in the coming @GlobeIdeas section, detailing the lack of evidence for the decades-old myth that "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" was once banned in Boston. bostonglobe.com/2023/12/19/o…

Boston banned lots of things. But not ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.’ - The Boston Globe

Despite what Wikipedia and John Mellencamp have said, the classic Christmas song wasn’t actually censored here.

bostonglobe.com
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Part 2 of the story, involving a Christmas card and a 1939 New Yorker cover, didn't make the Globe cut, but it too seems to be at least part fiction. So I published it on my sadly neglected blog. (Will Wikipedia fix it?) throwgrammarfromthetrain.blo…
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Replying to @Stonekettle
Riiiightttt.
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"Secretary stepping down after fewer than 8 months." Oh, @BostonGlobe. You've published my discussions of less & fewer usage, but not read them? Her tenure isn't counted off in discrete months; you're referring to a period of time (that happens to be less than 8 months).
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Your kid isn't fewer than 18 years old, your hometown isn't fewer than 30 miles away, your cholesterol goal isn't fewer than 200 mg/dL, your book isn't fewer than 120 pages. If the "countable" is thought of as an amount, "less" has been the usual choice for more than 1000 years.
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Friends, I've asked @Esquire support how to sign up (again) for @CharlesPPierce and politics without something they call a "Print Supplement" added. It's been a week since they acknowledged the email, and still no info. Who knows the secret? (Most confusing sub website EVER!)
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I know I'll get used to it, but just gonna say once how disappointed I am in the @OED online redesign. Replaced soft, booklike background, tints, and typefaces with harsh, angular navy/white contrast, like an ad for beach gear. And pointless white space, in a dictionary...!
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Would literally pay double if there were an option to "use traditional interface" ...
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So the book "covers a wide berth" of subjects, @nytimesbooks? The meaning of "wide berth" must have changed while I wasn't looking ...
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Three years ago unemployment was 11%, a post-war high. Today it's 3.7%, near a post-war low. Three years ago real GDP per capita (=average inflation-adjusted income) was $52,400. Today it's $60,600.
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Replying to @lynneguist
Hi Lynne! Yes, I was reading it, and fondly remembering "slosh."
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Replying to @PeterSokolowski
I love this passage from Boswell's Journal of a Tour. Johnson, b 1709, is still thinking of the older meaning (he defines enthusiasm as "A vain belief of private revelation; a vain confidence of divine favour or communication"); Boswell, b 1740, is thinking of the modern meaning.
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Though I love the deathbed dialogue in this week's Doonesbury, I can't be the only language watcher thinking Lacey wouldn't say "drapes" (especially in heaven). "An inexcusable vulgarism," Emily Post's "Etiquette" called the word, as late as 1951. "Curtains are hung at a window."
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On the eve of National Grammar Day, a new Grammar Noir episode. tinyurl.com/3wbdywsa
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Jan Freeman retweeted
Paul Solman@paulsolman8 Feb 2023
Last week's story on eggflation is up to 819k YouTube views, but slowing. I have bet the over on 900k with a colleague -- for literally 100 trillion dollars. Please help me, & BTW: how can the dollar number be true? youtu.be/WAwEXycDhzY

What's causing the price of eggs to skyrocket nationwide?

Prices at the grocery store have risen for many foods, but the cost...

youtube.com
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On the clock ivacheung.com/2023/02/on-the… Iva gets it so perfectly. I believe I have experienced every one of these scenarios as well as gardening. #amediting

On the clock - Iva Cheung

(An Editorial Cartoon—a print book of the first ten years of these comics about editing and publishing—is available from online book retailers everywhere. One dollar from each copy sold goes to the...

ivacheung.com
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This from @WSJ startled me: Not the story content (thanks to @Fritinancy) but the use of this word for a swim journey: "[One swimmer] has made the mile-and-a-quarter water trek from Alcatraz to San Francisco more than 200 times, but never in a wetsuit."
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Typical definition of "trek": "a long arduous journey, especially one made on foot" (Oxford Languages). Pretty sure I've never seen it describe even a boat journey, much less a swim. Though I guess you could say Jesus trekked on water ...
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