Must. Remind. Self.. The OED is not an arbiter of, but a chronicler of, English language use. Every year, the Powers-That-Be lean over the windowsills located high atop their Ivory Towers and cock an ear towards the milling crowds below. …
Category: Writing
Writer Fight! Writer Fight! : William F. Buckley, Jr. v. Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer, that ever-so-macho author (The Armies of the Night, The Naked and the Dead) is almost as well-known for his physical fights as for his writing. He famously head-butted Gore Vidal in the green room before their mutual appearance on the …
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Tacos with Pynchon, Burgers with Hemingway
In between drinking (Hemingway) and hiding (Pynchon), these two iconic writers were known to procrastinate in the way that many of us who write do: by chowing down. While stuffing our faces may partially delay the pain of composing, it’s …
Don’t Have Any FOMO! The Complete List of New Words in the OED is Here
Don’t know what FOMO stands for? Yeah, me either. (Psst… old folks! It means, “Fear of Missing Out.”) Good thing it is one of the sixty-five new entries in the venerable Oxford English Dictionary. As you will see, many of them are …
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Positive Development in Negative Spaces: Anne Frank and Peter Schiff
Despite her own fears as well as the horrors going on outside the crowded annexe where Anne Frank and her family were hiding from the Nazis, Anne, like many girls her age, was mooning over a boy. His name was …
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For Hemingway’s Birthday, A Gift to the World
JOHN F. KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY / AP (The birth certificate and family photograph of Ernest Hemingway from a scrapbook created by his mother, Grace Hall Hemingway.) Long before “scrapbooking” was a verb, mothers were collecting memories about their children and …
Not At This Time: Rejection Letters to Famous Writers
Why is dad so sad? Probably because he just checked his mail and found his self-addressed stamped envelope in his box, his manuscript inside, and the dreaded form letter saying, “We are sorry, but your manuscript does not currently meet …
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Celebs Gettin’ Schooled by 8-to-12 Year Old “Grammar Cops”
Red Balloon is a private school in Brazil designed to help Portuguese and Spanish-speaking children become fluent in English. The faculty came up with an innovative idea to engage kids AND help them learn. They encouraged the children to follow …
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