That article totally throws light on this topic.

English is very much a work in progress, with firm, traditional rules sometimes revealed as being "more honor'd in the breach than the observance." It seems that hyperbole has literally been with us since communication began.

William: there are several sites to help with Spanish grammar, but this one appears to have a straightforward set of guidelines for por and para. Perhaps a native speaker or Spanish teacher can point to a better list?

Nice link, MTC.

On behalf of the board, it behooves us to appreciate your joke, Slava.

In the UK also, shall has mostly been replaced by will , except in formal writing (e.g. "the owner shall provide...") and in questions where one seeks agreement to a suggestion (e.g. "Shall we go now?", "Shall I open the box?"). Will we go now? People are milling aroun...

None of these should be confused with Adam Ant.

XKCD weighs in on the debate.

Wolverine's skeleton was changed with adamantium.

I detest that syllable. So many people -- distinct from those with genuine hearing loss -- tend to react to the visual cue of another person speaking by interrupting to bark, "Huh?" If I wait patiently the hearing/understanding part of their brain kicks in, and it turns out that they heard...

I no longer have my copy of Growing Up Catholic * but it includes a passage on church entry procedures, including holy water font etiquette and correct genuflection and self-crossing techniques. To paraphrase, a casual, breezy dip of a knee is flippant and disrespectful. But to drop to both knees an...

^ Like jetpacks and flying cars?

Variations of the hobble skirt have gone in and out of fashion, starting ca 1910. The entire purpose of the hobble skirt is to restrict the stride to tiny, mincing steps. A very theatrical version appears from ~3:27-3:47 in Soomo Publishing's Bad Romance: Women's Suffrage, a dramatization of the wom...

Aye, a "Me" should always be real. There are me's and me's. (Sorry about that apostrophe -- I'm trying to keep the 'me' intact.) The Sumerian goddess Innana tricked Enki out of all the arts of Civilization, the ME. This poem is dated to 2000BC, and has a delightful cadence when read aloud...

An addition to the non-exhaustive list of relatives: wasn't there some person out there not all that long ago who called himself "the decider"? My thoughts as well, as I noted the strict definition. Alexander decided to cut through difficulties by cutting the Gordian Knot with a single de...

Where is our 'like' button?