Logomachon






Clearing the Fog
in the
War of Words

 

   
  logomachy--1. A dispute about words. 2. A dispute carried on in words only; a battle of words.
logomachon--1. One who argues about words. 2. A word warrior.

   
   
   
 

2005-06-02
 

O tempora, O mores department

A Web-based casino that likes to bid on weird stuff—like paying parents to name their baby after the company—was the (in retrospect, predictable) winner of a Langhorne woman's online auction to sell ad space on her newborn.
So for the month of July, Michele Hutchison will clothe her second child, Devon ... in logoed baby togs provided by GoldenPalace.com.
Hutchison said ... folks at the Caribbean-based gambling Web site promised they would clad her babe in nothing but the most stylish of onesies and other stuff as the family travels . . . in July. (“Newborn to be a casino billboard”, Phila. Inquirer)
To the Editor:
There I was, ateing my breakfast and wenting through the paper, when what done I beheld but a story about a woman solding advertising rights on her baby’s clothes. My toast started to caught in my throat, but what made my gorge risen was sawing that the casino had “promised they would clad her babe in nothing but the most stylish” outfits. I can't bore to saw someone trodding roughshod on the English language without spoking up: No, no! That should was would clathed her babe. Clad was the past tense indicative. What you want in this case was would clathed, which was the passive periphrastic pluperfect subjunctive.

Sincerely,

Concerned Citizen

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