The word spicy is way too indistinct. Something can be loaded with marjoram, a spice, and we don’t say it’s spicy. Same with cinnamon, cloves, dill, and many others. When we say spicy, what we mean is hot, in terms of Scoville units. And that’s a poor substitute, because hot is for heat, and we all know you can grab a room temperature habanero and still suffer immensely. Continue reading “Missing: Adjective”
Tag: language
Emoting
Props to Jonathan Nolan, who got it wincingly right with “Poker Face” in the May 20, 2013, New Yorker. People who know me have found it strange that I, by most accounts a grammarian and formalist, could develop such an emoticon habit (which I’ve recently gone cold turkey with). Continue reading “Emoting”
Plan B
Every once in a while I like to press my spectacles up the bridge of my nose, point my index finger to the ceiling, and pontificate on matters grammatical. I don’t think of it as grammar Nazism. I prefer calling myself a snoot, a term from David Foster Wallace’s essay “Authority and American Usage,” from Consider the Lobster. The snoot is a more playful breed, a beagle to the Grammar Nazi’s German shepherd. Continue reading “Plan B”