We have addressed the issue of redundancy in this column by pointing to the ubiquitous use of “help improve,” a phrase that usually would mean the same thing if only one of those words were used. “Editing will help improve your writing” means the same as “Editing will improve your writing.” Redundant use of “well” […]
Q. What are the best food sources of vitamin B12? A. Eggs, meat, dairy and fish. Meat up It follows that, unless vegans and strict vegetarians take a B12 supplement, they are getting insufficient amounts of the vitamin. Is that important? Vitamin B12 is a significant contributor to the conversion of food to energy, […]
Human intestines Nineteen years ago, I had my first colonoscopy. My then-wife and I had returned from a trip to California, during which I experienced an upset stomach that wouldn’t go away – the upsetness, not the stomach (actually, it remained intact, too, though I would have been happy to lose a few pounds). […]
Chris Matthews Less than six weeks before the general election (Nov. 4), American voters would do well to consider a few facts reported Sept. 25 on Hardball with Chris Matthews. Most people think the average CEO in this country makes (he/she sure as heck doesn’t earn it) 30 times the salary of the average employee. The […]
Hungry waitress Call them murdered modifiers, muddied modifiers, massacred modifiers – or, perhaps most accurate, misunderstood modifiers. They all describe those danged dangling modifiers. Doing the twist Creating them is easy: Just twist the syntax out of shape. You don’t even have to try. In fact, that’s how they come about. It’s called carelessness – […]
Cruise ship Outside my stateroom window, the big, heavy tub is churning the Caribbean into a frothy white that is absorbed by the inky swells of the vast sea. I watch, then turn to read the card that was hanging on the bathroom towel rack: “At Smooth Sailing Lines (real name unimportant), reducing waste […]
The Democratic Party lost the 2014 midterm elections last week to the Republicans, and the Miami Dolphins lost its ninth game of the season Sunday to the Detroit Lions. The reason was the same in both cases: The Dems and the Dolphins both played it safe instead of playing to win. With 3 minutes 47 […]
How are Americans supposed to know what food is healthy if the major medical organizations propagate wrong information? So far, so good Parade magazine, the Sunday supplement in many of the country’s newspapers, recently carried a two-page advertisement by the American Diabetes Association advising people with Type 2 diabetes on a healthy lifestyle. The flip […]
Preventive Gerontologist, Dr. Arnold Bretsky, recommends this … That’s the beginning of a sentence from a newspaper advertorial urging people to use a certain brain supplement. Perhaps the person who wrote it ought to practice what he or she preaches. Or take a course in English grammar. Of course, to err is human. However, to […]
Ex-Senator Barney Frank We just got a preview of what’s going to happen to the country under the new Congress, with both the House and Senate controlled by Republicans – and it isn’t pretty. Dodd-Frank decimated In the 11th hour, House Republicans sneaked into the 2015 budget bill provisions for removing important regulations of […]