Final chapters are always difficult, and I put a lot of time into "Unity from Diversity," the last chapter of This Is America, which we're thrilled to announce on the 4th of July 2014, US Independence Day. I’d had little involvement in creating this book, and I need it as much as anyone because I ignored US history
Hey boys and girls! Today's topic is "parallel constructions." Why, in God's name, do I want to discuss something with such a horrible sounding name? Parallel construction is the art of keeping lists in your writing consistent, whether it's a list of things you're going to do on vacation, a list of things that drive you
Important bulletin to staff on the use of the words "yay," "yeah," and "yea": "Yay" is not in Merriam Webster* (our standard) but yes, everyone uses it so that should be the standard spelling. "Yeah" is the informal version of Yes. "Yea" (pronounced "yay") is used when voting: yea or nay. * But this is! Merriam
When we were on vacation in Britain earlier this month I noticed that people seldom made a distinction between "which" and "that" in sentences, and I've been reading a bunch of British books and noticed the same thing. I was starting to question my sanity a little bit, because I'm 99% sure I know when to
Anybody who knows me knows that technology is NOT my middle name. (My middle name is actually “Give Him an Inch and He’ll Take a Yard.”) In recent years working at Berkshire, though, technology has been thrust upon me. I now understand enough about how computers work to get frustrated when things don’t appear to be
I just finished a marvelous book with the dry-as-dry-toast name The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by a Yale statistician and sculptor named Edward R. Tufte. I've come to learn that the book is considered the Elements of Style of charts - a true classic. This may be apocryphal, but he is known for the great
Here's a note I sent to Karen Christensen, our CEO and one of the editors of the original Encyclopedia of World Sport, that will turn up eventually in the introduction to the third edition, I suppose, because it explains a point that is of great importance to a lot of readers around the world: Dear Karen,
"Knock knock" "Who's there?" "To" "To who?" "To WHOM!!!" (To be said in an exasperated manner.) Or, as I originally told this, in telling it to my co-worker, Mar: "Knock knock" ... "who's there"? "Who" ... "who who"? "Uhhhh...." Telling jokes has never been one of my talents. The point of this inane joke is that
By Karen Christensen The press has done a fairly good job with Chinese names in all the recent reporting, though I did see a few references to "Bo Bo Guagua." But this interesting Bloomberg report goofed at one point: Through Hitoro, Wangjiang and Wangning, who retained her Chinese citizenship, owned Beijing Jiahua Investment Consulting Co. via
By Karen Christensen Berkshire still uses uppercase for the word Internet. Our Manual of Style, reflecting Chicago and standard US usage, says, "Internet (not 'the Net')." I would add to that, actually, a plea: not the 'net or the 'Net either. But that use of uppercase is a matter we should consider, it seems, according to
