A writer is a professional spinner of lies. His job: to lay out the truth on a bed of magnificent lies so it is visible… »
Accidental Academics
Why Haruki Murakami lies. Why he writes
A writer is a professional spinner of lies. His job: to lay out the truth on a bed of magnificent lies so it is visible to the world. In many cases it is impossible to grasp the truth in its original form — which is why we try to grab its tail by luring truth… »
Bookless in Boston
The future, we all know, is digital. So the present, for this prep school 90 minutes west of Boston, is a library without books. Not… »
Dec matches Ant?
There is a word that anyone who has ever worked as a sub-editor is particularly reverential of: public. So very easy to miss out the ‘l’ in it, and, boy, are you in trouble. ‘Gordon Brown addresses pubic meeting’. How nice. Looks like there is another we better start paying more attention to…. »
Go, Gatward, go!
Stefan Gatward is in the news for waging a lone war against the – how shall I put it? – non-use of apostrophes. He does it with a paintbrush, by correcting street signs that are, well,… »
BBC blooper
Ouch, can’t let this slide without having a quick go. Noticed on none other than the BBC, a classic tautological blooper that goes… wait a minute, ‘tautological blooper’ — is that not… »
Ka-boom! Varoom! The Old Man is back!
One Giant Leap to Nowhere is not your average feet-on-the-desk-smoke-a-cigar-and-pontificate column, but vintage Wolfe — founded on original reportage from the days when he was working the beat, delivered in his trademark tone of breathless excitement, with ellipses, exclamations,… »
Something Shylockian
This is about a 24-year-old girl who wanted to do a master’s in England with all her heart. Late in the summer of 2005 she boarded a bus from a town on the edge of Russia, clutching a first-class undergraduate degree, £110 in borrowings, and a handful of English words she had picked up at… »
Don’t sputter. Just say
There is this four-letter word in English that many of us are severely allergic to — and no, this one doesn’t start with… »
Look, this TWAT’s not working
Acronyms are ever so useful, so here’s one worth noting: TWAT. You will understand why I find this of particular interest when I say it is part of the academic lingo — at least over here in sunny… »
O, be some other name!
Purely as a matter of scholarly interest, I wonder who should rank higher in the academic hierarchy — associate dean or deputy dean? I ask because my university is in the throes of a titular makeover that involves a variety of deans…. »