Verbatim is no longer publishing. However, this is a fan site dedicated to the legacy of Verbatim. Please enjoy the archives we were able to find and share with you all!

What’s Verbatim? Verbatim is a magazine devoted to what is amusing, interesting, and engaging about the English language and languages in general. We strive to bring fascinating topics out of the dusty obscurity of dry linguistic scholarship and polish them up for the general reader with an intelligent interest in language. We gently poke fun at the messes people can get into with English and the misunderstandings that arise from our common language. All this, plus a generous helping of book reviews, should provide an hour or two’s diversion for the person interested in language.

VERBATIM Online Issues

VERBATIM Articles, Book Reviews, News

Authors and Articles Vol XXII

Authors and Articles VolumeNumberAuthorTitle XXII1Mohapatra, Ashok K.Politicking with Words: On Ideology and Dictionary Meaning XXII1Emerson, Ralph H.Horse Words in a Motor Age XXII1Egan, GaryChunnel Vision XXII1Howard, Hilary M.No Boys Named Sue, But... XXII1Bowmer,...

Letters

Dear Sir: Just a couple of SIC!s from Vol. 24 No. 1. 1. In the article "The Last Pibroch", the author writes of clan chiefs memorizing a few words of Gaelic "to impress visiting dignatories." Is this the Gaelic for "dignitaries"? 2. Concerning Odet's use of the word...

On Blue Moons, and Others

Nature has favored us with a single large satellite with two felicitous peculiarities: It always turns the same face towards us, and it appears exactly the same size in the sky as our sun. The latter property makes a total solar eclipse, if we are fortunate enough to...

The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary

BIBLIOGRAPHIA The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary, by Paul Dickson , 592 pp. Harvest Books (Harcourt Brace and Company), 1999. Hardcover $35.00, Paperback $20.00. We speak baseball all the time. Even those of us who know nothing about the nuances of the game...

New Work from David Galef

Long-time readers of VERBATIM will recognize the name David Galef; his pieces in our magazine consistently garner compliments (and the editor is always pleased to find a new one coming across her email transom). But VERBATIM, as you all know, only publishes...

Laurence Urdang, Founding Editor

Laurence Urdang, VERBATIM's founding editor and one of the most prolific lexicographers of the English language, died August 21, in Connecticut.Here is the link to The New York Times obituary; Ben Zimmer posts about Larry on Language Log; and I think the best obituary...

Pairing Pairs

I got a call this morning from someone who had picked up the VERBATIM book and needed one of the answers in Larry Urdang's Pairing Pairs explained. Which I did (possibly even to his satisfaction) ... but that motivated me to put up a link to Pairing Pairs here on the...

Letters, We Get Letters

One of my favorite parts of VERBATIM has always been the letters to the editor. They're often more like bite-size articles than like traditional letters to the editor. This one, below, was the first letter in Volume I, No. 1, from Eric Hamp. Dear Sir:People often...

Authors and Articles Vol XVI

Authors and Articles VolumeNumberAuthorTitle XVI1Baron, DennisWord Law XVI1Lederer, RichardThe Strange Case of Doctor Rotcod XVI1Greenwood, DouglasAnother Grammatical Game: The Foregone Conclusion XVI1Cannon, GarlandWord Droppings XVI1Rasmussen, Robert R.Knowing the...

Intolerable Intolerance, Redux

EX CATHEDRA In Volume 1, Number 3 of Verbatim, Laurence Urdang, in an article entitled "An Intolerant View of Intolerance" wrote: "I consider myself–as, I am sure, everyone regards himself–a tolerant human being: I try to avoid prejudice in all things. Yet I must...

Bats as Symbols

In the United States and Europe, bats tend to be considered creatures of ill omen–it is assumed that there must be something wrong with a mammal that wears fur but flies through the air. What is worse, most bats fly at night, thus proving they are up to no good....

Authors and Articles Volume XIV

Authors and Articles VolumeNumberAuthorTitle XIV1Demy, Nicholas G.Go to the Dictionary, Thou Sluggard XIV1Cahill, BrianWay To Go, Aubie! XIV1Soyka, Dan E.Whither Thou, Thee, Thy and Thine XIV1Cohen, HarryMicrolinguistics XIV1Howard, VirginiaIn Praise of St. Jerome...

Verbal Analogies Answers

Here are the answers to http://www.verbatimmag.com/verbal243.html 1. Platyrrhinian 2. Prothonotary 3. White(smith) 4. Glyptotheca 5. Curtilage 6. Salade 7. Rotula 8. Lagostoma 9. Milvine 10. Sciatheric 11. Acadian 12. Tocsin 13. Quasimodo (Sunday) 14. Rogation...

Books by Nicholas Humez

Humez, Alexander and Nicholas, and Goldfrank, Edward and Janice, The Boston basin Bicycle Book. Boston: Godine, 1975. Out of print. Humez, Alexander and Nicholas, Latin for People/Latina pro Populo. Boston: Little, Brown, 1976. Humez, Nicholas, Silversmithing : A...

Crossword #104 Answers

If you were missing the answers to Crossword #104 in XXXI/1, you're not the only one! Click here for them, which I know you're only using to check your own answers, right?

Authors and Articles Vol XXV

Authors and Articles VolumeNumberAuthorTitle XXV1Cates, David C.Where Did He Put the Pen of My Aunt? Navajo Revealed XXV1May, PeteBritish Football Chants XXV1Murphy, M. LynneExcerpts from the Baylor College Linguistics Scavenger Hunt XXV1Ronnick, Michele ValerieFrom...

Slayer Slang (Part 1)

by Michael Adams Albright College Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BTVS), a recent teen television hit, coins slang terms and phrases in nearly every episode, many of them formed in the usual ways, some of them at the crest of new formative tendencies, and some of them...

What’s the French for “Fiddle de dee”?

What’s the French for "Fiddle de dee"? Margaret of Scotland, Wife of Louis XI, provides an answer for Lewis Carroll Here’s a question to explore, A query Alice merely parried When she was examined for The right to wear the crown she carried, And to be a pawn no more....

VERBATIM
The Language Quarterly
Language and linguistics for the layperson since 1974

http://letterfrequency.org – letter and word frequencies

Digital Dining Room – free storytelling and blogging lessons

Story Bistro – free tips for branding, blogging, and marketing

preparing-faculty.org – preparing future faculty program

USA Today Educate – free educational resources