Archive for 2010

As you’re probably aware, today is Veterans Day, but there’s a lot of confusion about whether it’s actually Veteran’s, Veterans’, or Veterans Day. The Department of Veterans Affairs obviously gets asked about this a lot, because it’s the top question in their FAQs: Q. Which is the correct spelling of Veterans Day? Veterans Day Veteran’s [...]

A few days ago John McIntyre took a whack at the Associated Press Stylebook’s penchant for flat assertions, this time regarding the spelling of gray/grey. McIntyre noted that gray certainly is more common in American English but that grey is not a misspelling. In the comments I mused that perhaps gray is only more common [...]

My sister-in-law will soon graduate from high school, and we recently got her graduation announcement in the mail. It was pretty standard stuff—a script font in metallic ink on nice paper—but one small detail caught my eye. It says the commencement exercises will take place at “ten-thirty o’clock.” As far as I can remember, I’ve [...]

I’m working on a research project for a class this semester, and I need volunteers to take a short survey. It involves reading three short passages and answering a few questions. It should only take about 10 minutes. The results will not be published and no identifiable personal information will be collected. If anyone is [...]

Before I begin: I know—it’s been a terribly, horribly, unforgivably long time since my last post. Part of it is that I’m often busy with grad school and work and family, and part of it is that I’ve been thinking an awful lot lately about prescriptivism and descriptivism and linguists and editors and don’t really [...]