520 GG Band Names. Woman or Female?
BAND NAMES: When referring to a rock band, do I use the single form "is" or "are"? Does the band name dictate the usage? WOMAN OR FEMALE? The question of word choice is rising again—Is Hilary Clinton ...
10 Juni 20167min
519 GG RBIs. Principal and Principle. Run of the Mill
HOW TO MAKE RBI PLURAL: Baseball season has started, so it’s a good time to answer questions from listeners who have asked how to make an abbreviation such as "RBI" plural. PRINCIPAL OR PRINCIPLE? Tod...
2 Juni 201611min
518 GG Are You Interurban? Vonnegut's Famous Semicolon Quotation Was Taken Out of Context. Off the Cuff.
ARE YOU INTERURBAN? When you split your time between the East Coast and the West Coast, you can call yourself “bicoastal.” What about when you’re splitting your time between two cities, like a listene...
26 Maj 201611min
517 GG Why Do We Call It Commencement? When to Delete "It"
COMMENCEMENT: Last week a professor in my department asked me why we call a graduation ceremony “commencement” when the event marks the end of college. “To commence” means “to begin,” not end, so it s...
19 Maj 20168min
516 GG Celsius Versus Centigrade. 'Between' Versus 'Among'
Celsius Versus Centigrade: Anders Celsius was a Swedish astronomer who invented a thermometer based on the boiling point and freezing point of water. We know a slightly improved version of his thermom...
12 Maj 20168min
515 GG Home vs. Away? How to Make Product Names Plural
Away Versus Home? A listener named Alan wrote, “When using the word versus, does it make a difference as to what is placed before and what is placed after? For example: Roe versus Wade or Red Sox vers...
5 Maj 20169min
514 GG Brouhaha. New Words. One Fell Swoop.
Last week, ESPN fired Curt Schilling because of offensive remarks he made on social media, and in his follow-up statement, Schilling referred to the brouhaha, but he misspelled the word as brew ha ha,...
29 Apr 201610min
513 GG North or Northbound. Subjunctive Verbs.
Carrie from New Orleans asked me to help her understand whether she should say "I wish I were more perceptive" or "I wish I was more perceptive." It's a great question because it's something that a lo...
21 Apr 20167min
