‘To hone in on’ is wrong, ‘to home in on’ is correct
I was catching up on the news and reading Slate‘s “Today’s Papers” from yesterday when I spotted one of the confused idioms that really drive me up a well (that’s a joke, people): “to hone in on” Lydia...
View ArticleEtymology of ‘Lent’
Via Wikipedia: This word initially simply meant spring (as in Dutch lente) and derives from the Germanic root for long because in the spring the days visibly lengthen.
View ArticleGoing forward, can we please omit ‘going forward’?
Somewhat like the childhood game of Musical Chairs, there’s a point in the popularity arc of any cliché when it becomes so tiresome that anyone who continues to use it exposes himself as an insecure...
View ArticleJaime Escalante and ‘ganas’
The death of Jaime Escalante is in the news today. Escalante was the calculus teacher portrayed in the 1988 film Stand and Deliver who had his students in a low-income, East Los Angeles school passing...
View ArticleJ.K. Rowling: Harvard Commencement speech
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey recemtly, and during the hour, Oprah showed brief clips of the Harvard Commencement speech Ms. Rowling gave on June 5, 2008. Those...
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