Dammed If You Do…
An article from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies recently revealed the shocking news that some South Korean rivers have been condemned to eternal punishment : The natural landscape of South Korea has been largely re-engineered, with nearly every river damned or forced into concrete channels. Of course, what the piece really meant to say was “dammed” – with a dam on it. Dammed and damned are two words that are often confused, not least because they are homophones; they sound the same. It’s also easy to miss an incorrect usage because the two words look so similar. The main evening news

Mystery Writing Contest for Unpublished Novelists
The Debut Dagger is a crime writing competition sponsored by the Crime Writers’ Association. According to Liz Evans, contest chair, 18 Dagger entrants have landed publishing contracts since the annual competition began in 1998. The bad news: If you’ve already had a novel published commercially–in any genre–you can’t enter. The good news: If your entry makes the short list, you’ll receive a professional assessment of your entry, even if you don’t win. First prize is £500, tickets to the CWA Daggers’ Awards and a night’s stay in “a top London hotel.” The entry fee of £25 is payable by credit card or

Word of the Day: Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a figure of speech where incongruous or contradictory terms are combined. Two examples are “genuine imitation” and “deafening silence.” In response to ”Making E-ZPass Easier” (July 28), let’s not overlook the profound oxymoron of both the name and idea of New Jersey’s E-ZPass system and its out-of-state cousins. (NY Times) Unfortunately a “jobless recovery” is an oxymoron. If its “jobless” it isn’t a recovery, and if its a recovery it can’t be “jobless.” (WSJ) Your eBook:

Three Alternatives?
Recently my mother (British, somewhat pedantic) visited us, and I mentioned “three alternatives” in conversation. She immediately jumped down my throat and told me that “alternative” was one of two choices – and that “three alternatives” was a contradiction in terms. So, rushing to my own defense, I pulled down the New Oxford American Dictionary, a dictionary I prefer to Webster’s, for a number of reasons, as detailed below, and there I found: One of two or more available possibilities but with a rider that added: Some traditionalists maintain Š that you can only hav

Parsons Chairs and Parsons
The first time I heard the term parsons chair I immediately imagined that the name derived from some quaint country custom of seating the visiting preacher on the best chair in the parlor. Not so. The Parsons chair takes its name from its place of invention: the Parsons School of Design founded in Paris in 1921 by Frank Alvah Parsons. According to an article on a site called Modern Dining Chairs, The parsons chair is virtually always crafted of hardwood, and features a slightly curving, squared bac