Verbal potpourri … catch-up post

Been kinda busy during the 60º summer here … fish are biting and the Brewers are too, in a less fortunate sense. A few things to note quickly, each of which really warrants a full post unto itself. Let's just number them …

(1) The NYT has spoken on "To Be 'Verbed' or Not 'Verbed', re the new (commercial) to bing. Not noticed about this in the blogosphere that I've seen is that they give a paradigm:

• I bing
• she bings
• he bang
• you had bung
• they are binging
• let's bing!

Even though CVN, where 'N' = velar nasal, is probably the ideal shape for a new strong verb, I'm guessing the homophony with 'to bang' and with non-verbal 'bung' would likely block this. More importantly, I hope the notion of binging never gets this far. Maybe the author, Noam C.*, was playing with language here.

(2) Science is doing swearing. The piece is pretty funny, but I'm seriously skeptical that they're onto anything here. This is what Science spends its space on?

(3) Safire has spoken up for singular they.

(4) Palin's speech has finally been decoded:



Come on: it makes more sense than any other view out there.

* No, not that Noam C., Noam Cohen in this case.