Grammar

Irony is a force that gives us meaning

by Sam Worley on December 6, 2012 at 6:00PM

It's come to my attention that you don't understand what the word irony means. It's OK, no big, I actually have no idea either.

Hanky-panky with the hokey pokey

by Sam Worley on November 29, 2012 at 6:00PM

"The hokey cokey (United Kingdom), hokey pokey (United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia), hokey tokey (New Zealand), also known as okey cokey, or cokey cokey, is a participation dance with a distinctive accompanying tune and lyric structure." —Wikipedia Hokey pokey (disambiguation) Hokey pokey can refer to: Hokey pokey (ice cream) Hokey Pokey (album), an album by Richard and Linda Thompson released in 1975 Hokey Pokey, the controversial Texas prison, closed in 1963, where the common practice of prisoners holding their arms out to receive meals originated a new dance trend Hokey low-key, drugged to an artificial state of calm, as in spending the holidays with family

Against the summarized Web

by Steve Bogira on November 28, 2012 at 2:43PM

The "wave of the future" on the Internet likely will include lots of helpful story summaries, one of our Web gurus, Asher Klein, predicted here Friday. Klein usually knows what he's talking about, unfortunately.

Lower the boom, release the Kraken, and open the kimono

by Sam Worley on November 15, 2012 at 6:00PM

Because the piece was in the New York Times's Great Homes and Destinations section, it was less a profile of Mediabistro founder Laurel Touby than it was a profile of Touby's loft in Gramercy Park. It is an extremely nice loft, and extremely expensive—purchased for $3.9 million in 2009 and since renovated for another $2 million.

Keep the A.V. Club crossword alive

by Sam Worley on November 13, 2012 at 1:15PM

My favorite crossword constructor, Ben Tausig, supplies puzzles to the Reader and other alt-weeklies. Tausig recently launched a Kickstarter project to continue funding another of his concerns: the American Values Club crossword, which Tausig edits and which the A.V. Club recently canceled.

"Of the Big Shoulders, City": a poem*

by Sam Worley on November 1, 2012 at 6:00PM

* An @NYTprepositions-style tribute, with apologies to @NYTprepositions, #NYTbooks, Carl Sandburg, the city of Chicago, readers of the Chicago Reader, Yoda, the New York Times, Jen Doll, my parents, and everybody else. For the World, Hog Butcher Tool Maker, of Wheat, Stacker With Railroads, Player, and the Nation's Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, Of the Big Shoulders, City:

Does Sarah Palin speak jive? and other bullshit concerns

by Sam Worley on October 25, 2012 at 6:00PM

Politico's Mike Allen reported this morning that Barack Obama, in a forthcoming interview with Rolling Stone, indirectly calls Mitt Romney a "bullshitter." Rolling Stone's editor, Eric Bates, told Obama that he'd asked his six-year-old if she had anything she wanted to pass along to the president.

Doing right by Studs Terkel

by Michael Miner on October 22, 2012 at 2:31PM

Reviewer Richard J. Evans is called out by Chicagoan Marc Geelhoed in the new issue of the New York Review of Books for overlooking a set of quote marks. The matter isn't as petty as it sounds.

No fracking, please, we're New English

by Sam Worley on October 18, 2012 at 6:00PM

Romenesko reported yesterday that the Hearst Connecticut Media Group has banned from its comment boards the use of the word fracking, which sometimes refers to a hydraulic-fracturing process by which petroleum and natural gas are extracted from rocks beneath the earth's surface. Fracking is objectionable for a number of reasons, not least its effects on the environment (and on the flammability levels of the water at nearby residences), but Hearst found it uncomfortable for reasons as follows: "Sadly, many of our users attempt to exploit a perfectly legitimate word as a replacement for it's more vulgar cousin," wrote Brett Mickelson, the executive producer of the Hearst Connecticut Media Group, employing what's known in the trade as the "vulgar apostrophe" (like its cousin the normal apostrophe, only wrong).

The proper usage of the word cheers, in Japanese

Lovely piece of Brit: a spectre haunts the Times

by Sam Worley on October 11, 2012 at 6:00PM

In Illinois we worry about Asian carp, but it's another spectre—sorry, specter—that haunts the east coast. The Times's Alex Williams reported yesterday on the creep of British English into the colonial vernacular, an invasion he sees as originating with New York City media elites, who become the subject of articles by other New York City media elites and, in that way, make it socially acceptable for themselves to describe nice things as "brilliant."

Chicago Reader

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