The CNN article on this win says “Colbert — who once derided the folks at Springfield-based Merriam-Webster as the ‘word police’ and a bunch of ‘wordinistas’ — was pleased. ‘Though I’m no fan of reference books and their fact-based agendas, I am a fan of anyone who chooses to honor me,’ he said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.”

You’ll need to add that to your business card — A. Bechdel, Wordinista.

“Liberal” is a tricky word. If you look at what are nowadays often called “classical liberals” like Hume and Mill (sorta like Classic Coke), they don’t look much like American liberals of the mid-20th century, though the intellectual genealogy is pretty clear. One of its meanings, and the one which is usually lurking behind its present day uses, is “generous.” As in “big spending liberals.” I’m way to the left of liberals myself, I’m a moderate. While such terms are probably necessary for orienting oneself in political debates, they must be used with a grain (at least) of salt.

Alison and the other folks here are definitely not linguistic “conservatives.” A true linguistic conservative defends to the death the virtue of that lovely little word “gay”, recruited by homosexuals for our own fell purposes and unspeakable acts. Sorry, but I’ve recently been reading and re-reading some of the works of the language wars, and it’s worth remembering how worked up a lot of liberal homophobes became over that change of meaning. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. was one, quoted in Harvey A. Daniels’s great book “Famous Last Words.” I heard Daniel Schorr ranting about the recruitment of “gay” on NPR’s Morning Edition only a couple of years ago; the hysteria hasn’t gone away.

I’m just beginning to read Jim Quinn’s “American Tongue and Cheek,” which looks great. I’ll dig into it as soon as I finish Peter Beagle’s “A Fine and Private Place,” which I’ve put off for decades. Literally. I’m liking it a lot more than I expected; “The Last Unicorn” always put me off.

does she mean she favors serial monogamy over a philosophy of “anything that moves?”

“liberal” is such a problematic word, and it gets flung around most often to just mean “not republican.” but there’s so much more out there then democrats and republicans, liberals and conservatives, all of which i consider to be pretty repugnant.

while we all know that conservativism is about rolling back the clock, how many of us are willing to still call ourselves liberals when we realize that liberalism is about supporting and enforcing the status quo? hello? thomas jefferson? it’s a liberal society we live in, our very foundations are liberal.

those seeking some kind of forward change often refer to themselves as progressives.

those seeking a reworking of everything often refer to themselves as radicals.

so, was alison being precise in calling herself a “social liberal?” maybe politically she’s something more interesting? (even i’m glad bernie got elected, and i hate electoral politics! even gladder about daniel ortega.)

and, hey, i’m down with serial monogamy. (and i’m single.) maybe i’m a social liberal too! and, i fully admit to being wishy-washy on the split infinitive question. so, apparantly, i’m also a linguistic liberal.

gosh, this blog is fun!

CARING COUPLE WHO HELPED DOG BITE BOY ARE TRACED

(Yes, you guessed, they helped a boy who had been bitten by a dog.)

The Jane Austen ‘singular ‘their” examples didn’t convince me – they weren’t the same as the modern usages: they were all ‘everybody/anybody…their’ rather than, for example, ‘the student may submit their paper online’. But actually, I often find singular their the least bad option.

On Alison’s ‘hardline conservative’ linguistic tendencies, I have to point out that one of the many joys of DTWOF is the language of the characters – through which I’ve learnt many a joyfully ungrammatical piece of American slang (often long before actually finding out what it meant!)