Tabs on Writing

Tweet Legend has it that the word urbane (click for pronunciation)  is derived from the Latin word, urbanus, meaning related to a city. So, someone who is quite sophisticated, refined and suave, i.e., urbane, likely spent some time learning the ropes of gentility in the big city or urban area. The irony would be if that urbane gentleman who […]

Tweet The above words represent everyone’s favorite, welcomed phrase during a speech given by a long-winded lecturer or after-dinner speaker. Time to get to the point – time to provide a summary of the preceding pages and paragraphs. Fortunately, most of these presentations are conducted indoors, especially during this time of year in the hot, summery weather. In the […]

Tweet In a recent Associated Press article about the Pashtun and Tajik tribes of Afghanistan, the reporter crossed all the t’s and dotted all of the i’s when it came to obscure, ethnic names of villages, valleys and military leaders, e.g.,  General Mohammed Zahir Azimi, the Arghandab Valley, Lt. Gulagha Haksar. The content flowed well, […]

Tweet If you can remember that “by” is a preposition that needs to followed by a noun or pronoun, you have good grammar running through your veins. When it comes time to “buy” something for yourself, think of spelling that word with “u” in the middle of the homophone. If you or your team earns […]

Tweet If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck. However, you would use duct tape to repair any of the following: On a NASA operation (Apollo 13 and Apollo 17) Apply as an bandage until proper medical treatment is available Fix Apple’s iPhone 4 […]

Tweet If you are looking at the “big picture,” say from 30,000 feet above sea level in a plane, you have an aerial view. If you are selecting a font on your computer, you may select Arial, a contemporary sans serif type face. If you have a granddaughter who loves the Disney princesses, you might […]

Tweet The other evening we decided to go to a local Mexican restaurant. Mmm…mmm…good. The waitress informed us, however, that they had run out of chili rellenos…not so good. The good news is that she introduced us to poblano peppers. Got me to thinking about the word chili (sometimes also spelled chile). Funny, how the […]

Tweet Recently, it being the middle of summer, we have had several thunderstorms. My two little, pre-school granddaughters (Allison Sophia and Taylor Lucia) tell me that they occur because the angels in heaven are bowling. Little do they know that they are angelic themselves. They, like most everyone else, don’t like lightning strikes and the subsequent, booming […]

Tweet Songwriter, singer and vaudeville performer, Jack Norworth composed “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” in 1908 and yet he never attended a baseball game until 1940. Typically sung during the “seventh-inning stretch,” this song has been part of baseball lore now for exactly 100 years this season. I have been a baseball fan(atic) since I was […]

Tweet I was just playin’ possum…or opossum, as the case may be…