Lanny Heidbreder

Grammar, spelling, pronunciation, and other English usage issues with a minimum of pretension and maxima of opinion and snark

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

Dear lord, people: "Phenomenon" is singular; "Phenomena" is plural. And that "Mahna Mahna" joke you're about to make is idiotic. Shut up.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

You'll never go wrong by never using the word "proverbial". It's idiotic when misused and superfluous when used correctly.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

The poem is called “Jabberwocky”, but the monster was just the “Jabberwock”.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

“In your best interests” is clearly generally preferred to “In your best interest”, but I rather prefer the latter. Is either more correct?

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

I'm disappointed to learn that nouns functioning as adjectives are not, as I believed, considered a special kind of adjective.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

Note to self: Start using "millionnaire" instead of "millionaire". It doesn't hurt anyone and it's oh-so-slightly more intelligent.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

I like split infinitives, but I don't like Star Trek’s. “To go boldly” is a better contrast to “where no one has [even] gone before”.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

Verses are parts of a song. “Versus” means “against”.

“Apple versus Adobe”, not “Apple verses Adobe”.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

It occurs to me now that I've been using “web site” — with a lowercase ‘w’ — this whole time. That's the worst possible option.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

The @APStylebook and @gruber have both ditched "Web site" for "website". I guess it's time for me to do the same. http://is.gd/bwqBd

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

The previous tweet was posted to the wrong account. Sorry about that.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

@GregPfister I don't exactly worry about it. If "agenda" didn't obviously sound like other snooty plural nouns, I wouldn't even think of it.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

@GregPfister I should've said "WAS plural". An agendum is a to-do; agenda are many to-dos. Over time, "agenda" came to mean the list itself.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

I recently had a revelation: "Agenda" is plural. Now I have a hard time writing e-mails to corporate douches that sound right to both of us.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

I just saw a commercial brag that its product was “ALL all-natural”. I choose to believe that it was making fun of meaningless buzzwords.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

“With his neat, scraped back hair, Bosman, now 56, is enthusiastic….”

That sentence could use a discretionary hyphen. http://is.gd/5ULme

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

Interestingly enough, using the “[adverb] enough” construction makes you sound like an idiot. Stop doing that.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

“All-Star Team” makes sense, since it its members are all stars. “All-State”, “All-Region”, and the like do not make quite so much sense.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

If using the word “proverbial” should strike your fancy, please take my advice: Ignore your fancy at all cost.

[Lanny Heidbreder @usage]

Any English teacher who teaches against redundancy but also uses “Compare and contrast” in his essay prompts is a hypocrite.