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Category Archives: Our Magnificent Language

The Pun

The pun’s a simple verbal joke
  that most of us eschew.
And yet I readily admit,
This irritating form of wit
Has always seemed to be a hit
  with geeks of high I.Q.
It seems they like to torture words
By making up a “play on nerds.”
 

Whole Brain Goodness

Free Rice Dot Com has taught me much
  through error and frustration.
A heartwood extract’s known as “cutch.”
A kolk’s an eddy (from the Dutch).
I’m going to say “dudeen” and such
  in daily conversation.
So word by word and grain by grain
I feed the world and stuff my brain!
 
 

More on “My Wife and I”

In response to “Grammatical Gripe #2″ The Ridger writes:
Well, I’m not so very good at rhyme,
But this thing you hear all the time?
It’s just the language on its way
From Old English to modern day.
Pronouns are in a state of change,
They may seem awful, rude, or strange
But it’s no worse than nouns went through
And that doesn’t seem to [...]

The Retronym

The retronym’s a useful word,
A favorite of the language nerd.
It’s coined when innovation’s done
And then refers to Version One.
To wit, our mail was simply mail
Till e-mail forced the added “snail.”
I had to wait till I was grown
To learn a phrase like “land-line phone.”
And no new tricks for this old dog!
The watch I wear is “analog.”
There’s [...]