The Lighter Side of Language at Grammar & Composition

Dr. House's clinical metaphors, Tony Soprano's menacing proverbs, Homer Simpson's outrageous figures of speech. Along with eponyms and euphemisms, family slang and mondegreens, these are just some of the odd, amusing and provocative topics covered on the lighter side of language at About.com Grammar & Composition.

The poet Walt Whitman described the English language as the "grandest triumph of the human intellect." But now and then the language seems to run amuck (our favorite loan word from Malay, by the way). Or maybe it's the language users who run amuck (also spelled "amok"). In any case, we've kept a record of those linguistic encounters that have left us smacking our foreheads--in amazement, vexation, or unabashed delight.

Here, culled from the hundreds of articles at Grammar & Composition, are two dozen of those head-smacking moments. So please join us on a tour of the lighter side of language. (And to keep up with these eccentric events, register for the free Grammar & Composition Newsletter.)

Puns, Peeves, Plurals, and Mixed Metaphors

• Store Name Puns: 200 Punny Shop Names
  A liquor store named Boo's, a clothing shop named Knit Wit, and a portable-toilet rental service in Chicago named (get ready) Oui Oui Enterprises.

• Ghost Poop, Woozies, and Foochacha: Family Slang
  What do you think is the proper term for the tube of cardboard inside a roll of toilet paper: daw-daw, taw taw, doot-do, der der, hoo-hoo, or to-do to-do?

• 200 Words and Expressions That Tick You Off
  When invited to submit expressions that ticked them off, readers responded enthusiastically--with usage errors, redundancies, misspellings, mispronunciations, and specimens of slang, jargon, and textspeak.

• The Lighter Side of English Plurals
  If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth, why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

• Block Those Metaphors!
  Are you ready to step up to the plate and fish or cut bait?

Pop Goes the Culture

• Homer Simpson's Figures of Speech
  Though Homer's rhetorical turns sometimes take odd detours, he's undeniably Springfield's master rhetorician. Woo-hoo!

• The Story Behind the Spell-Checker Poem
  Meet Mr. Mark Eckman, originator of that well-traveled spell-checker poem, "Candidate for a Pullet Surprise."

• House Calls: The Metaphors of Dr. Gregory House
  Before you can ask if there's a metaphor in the house, Dr. House will oblige.

• The Missing Part of Speech at Schoolhouse Rock!
  A nostalgic visit to the land of Conjunction Junction.

• The Rhetoric of Tony Soprano and Uncle Junior
  We may have said "ciao ciao" to The Sopranos, but let's never forget our favorite crime family's gifts to the ancient field of rhetoric.

• Does Bad Grammar Make You Stop Singing Along?
  Why Pink Floyd could get away with "bad grammar" in "Another Brick in the Wall"--and why a glam-metal band cannot.

There Must Be a Word for It

• M&M’s and Other Eponyms
  If you look up "eponym" in Webster, you'll find that using "Webster" as a synonym for dictionary is a perfectly eponymous thing to do.

• Fifty Reasons You'll Never Be Told, "You're Fired"
  Apparently those day-long seminars in workplace sensitivity have paid off: "firing" is now as outdated as a defined-benefit pension plan.

• The Language of Baseball
  Any jelly bean with a pole can cork a meatball out of hard cheese.

• Merriam-Webster Welcomes the Mondegreen
  From "Barney's the king of Israel" to "Doughnuts make your brown eyes blue."

• Language Taboos: Never Say "Die"
  People rarely die in hospitals. Unfortunately, some folks do "expire" there.

• What Is a SNOOT?
  After reading this article, decide if you are a SNOOT: one of "the Few, the Proud, the More or Less Constantly Appalled at Everyone Else."

Punctuate This!

• The Long Campaign to Abolish the Apostrophe
  Are you ready to eliminate this much-abused mark of punctuation?

• Punctuation Matters: A "Dear John" Letter and a Two Million Dollar Comma
  Here are two cautionary tales that demonstrate just how correct punctuation can make a big difference.

• Please Don't "Quote" Me
  On the widespread abuse of quotation marks: wayward quotes, leering quotes, sneering quotes, and (ugh) snotty quotes.

• Stock Up Now: Periods in Short Supply
  Back up your Word documents, assign a password to your dictionary, and lock down your Times Roman font: according to Steve Martin, we're running out of periods.

Waffle, Claptrap, Bafflegab, and Poppycock

• George Carlin's Essential Drivel
  "Good, funny, occasionally smart, but essentially drivel"--that's how comedian George Carlin described his own writing.

• Golden Bull Awards for 2008
  The Plain English Campaign hands out awards for the best bad prose.

• The Myles na Gopaleen Catechism of Cliché
  Brian O'Nolan's "unique compendium of all that is nauseating in contemporary writing."