I received an e-newsletter today in which the plural of pizza is spelled pizza’s. For reals.

Yeah, yeah—these things happen. But they really shouldn’t. One of the simplest rules in all of English is that, for the most part, anyway*, all it takes to form a plural is the addition of an s. One cat, two cats; one book, two books; one viola, two violas.

It’s that last example that throws people, though. For some reason, if the word ends in a vowel—like, say, pizza—out of nowhere comes the apostrophe.

Don’t. Just…don’t. All you need is s.

*The animal kingdom provides some of the more notable exceptions: mice, geese, sheep, hippopotami, et al.

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It may be “the new Latin,” but American English still has its discontents. Not to mention at least four different ways of pronouncing “crayon.” Still, it’s good to see we’re winning. Maybe now we can finally settle this.

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Every few months, Stefan Kordluk would go to the same location and film for just a few seconds. The result is a beautiful time-lapse video made all the more remarkable when you consider his method:

“I took some still images of the exact same framing and then I printed them out so I would have references everytime I went back. I also took a pictures of where my tripod legs stood and also printed them out so I would have references for that as well. Then I fine tuned the positioning and scaling in after effects.”

Best when viewed in full-screen mode.

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Philip K. Dick’s last interview from the June 1982 issue of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine.… An ugly Lamborghini (no, really).… Today’s Britain: women dressed as badgers were seen “chasing doughty nationalist supporters down London’s Whitehall as a large number of security forces in iridescent jackets looked on from police lines.”… One in thirteen people have flexible ape-like feet. No word on the other twelve.… Two words: Sky City.… And finally, Australia continues to thumb its nose at convention, this time with giant pink slugs.

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This looks absolutely fascinating, if perhaps—just perhaps—a little opportunistic. Until the film is completed, you can learn more about Ms. Maier’s odd life and see some of her newly discovered work here.

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My friend Derek—who’s moved his online musings from here to here—sent me a link to The Origins of 9 Great British Insults. Which is weird, because I happened to be reading this at the time.

While recognizing the social need for taboo language, I remain indifferent to much of it. I mean, I’m rarely offended when the “n-word” is used; the various and—let’s be honest—downright ingenious ways the f-bomb is deployed are more likely to make me giggle than to cause indignation.

Which brings me back to the British insults list, from which we learn that “clod hopper” appears in the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Would that offend anyone today? And if not, is it a function of the evolution of language, or evidence that we’ve become desensitized?

Or—and this is by far the more likely scenario—am I way over-thinking it?

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Richard Wagner was born 200 years ago today. I’m celebrating by playing Götterdämmerung—the celebrated 1964 Solti recording—while Shirlee’s at lunch.

Back in 2011, Alex Ross wrote a typically insightful essay for the New Yorker that helps explain why Wagner, the man responsible for “the most ambitious work of art ever attempted,” still matters today. Since you’re too late to make the celebration at Bayreuth, why not give it a read?

And please, please, please…ignore the constant reminders that Wagner wasn’t a terribly nice man. Just listen.

*In the words of Anton Bruckner, who dedicated his third symphony to Wagner. 

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

How long has it been since we talked grammar? Too long, I’m thinking. So let’s not waste any more time.

A frequent source of confusion for a lot of people is what to call all these college graduates that seem to have appeared out of nowhere. It used to be simple: one man was an alumnus, a group of men were alumni; one woman was an alumna, a group of women were alumnae.

But in an era when neutrality reigns supreme—it was just just last year, after all, that Sweden introduced the genderless pronoun “hen”—we’ve apparently decided that “alumnus” and “alumni” are now unisex terms for all graduates. (But if you have trouble remembering the rules for singular and plural, “alum” will do.)

So are there still freshmen in college? Or are they now freshpersons?

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