The Problem with Gender Neutral Bibles
I stumbled across a very interesting essay by Vern Poythress. In it, he talks about gender neutral Bibles (like the TNIV, the Good News Bible, the CEV, etc) and how they can change the meaning of the Biblical text in subtle ways.
Language nerds will probably understand and enjoy it the most, but I think his …
Don't Use Useless Definitions
When writing, it pays to be as clear and concise as possible. This sentence (from Alliant Energy’s ”Monthly Natural Gas Update”) is neither:
A decatherm (equal to 10 therms) is enough natural gas to heat an average home for 4.5 days.
It’s not clear because I still don’t know what a ”decatherm” is. The parenthetical …
If you've always wanted to learn Yuchi, now's the time.
Yesterday, as an example of how languages are constantly evolving, I taught my Writing & Grammar 9 students the origin of the English word ”goodbye” (it started life as the phrase ”God be with you” – just in case you didn’t know).
Now I read an article I’ll certainly be sharing with them tomorrow: according to …
Ayn Rand's book, and its mirror
If you’d as recently as yesterday pitched me a story told through diary entries about love between two citizens of a collectivist government set in the distant future – a future in which the very word ”I” is no longer remembered – I would have naturally assumed you were talking about Ayn Rand’s Anthem, a …
What it All Means
Liberal, conservative, neocon, radical, progressive, red, pinko — what does it all mean? Callimachus breaks it down in his latest Carnival of the Etymologies.