Posts under ‘Pet Peeves’

A remarkable thing happened the other day. I was driving home from the post office and when I stopped at the stop sign on Sixth Avenue, at the Elm Street intersection, there was a pedestrian crossing the street! He was crossing Sixth Avenue right in front of me. Really! I saw him with my own […]

I have long held the view that our children cannot read and write well because they don’t read and write enough. Becoming proficient at anything requires practice. Lurking in the back of my mind I’ve also had the notion that we see far too many bad examples that we take as proper usage because they […]

A while ago, a friend introduced me to someone else and noted about me: “He’s a Mac nerd.” Naturally, I corrected him. It’s a common enough mistake — confusing geeks and nerds. This mistake is up there with not understanding the difference between “infer” and “imply.” So let me explain. Geekiness is knowledge-based, nerdiness is lifestyle-based. […]

Call me old fashioned. I still believe that “data” is the plural form of “datum.” Isn’t that quaint? In the Olde Days, that’s the way it was. But if enough people make the same mistake for long enough, that mistake gains legitimacy through some “common usage” exception. Thus it was that “data” came to be […]

If “login” were a real verb, it would not sound silly to say: “John is loginning.” You don’t need to be an English major to know that John is logging in, not loginning. The verb is “log” and “in” is just a preposition.