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.
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VERBATIM Articles, Book Reviews, News
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...
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...
Darn!
I was thinking of Dwight Bolinger the other day (as you do) and remembered that he had written a very nice short article about "Darn!" for VERBATIM back in the day. Enjoy!...
Authors and Articles Vol XVII
Authors and Articles VolumeNumberAuthorTitle XVII1Peterson, Max C.The Language of the Law XVII1Sypnowich, PeterNeedless to Say XVII1Pomfrit, D.A.Verbal Analogies V--Divination XVII2Pascal, PaulWhat's in a Roman Name? XVII2Bach, ZelligThe Scandalous Yiddish Guide of...
A Quick Fox Jumps over the Cwm Fjord-Bank Glyph Biz
Russell Slocum Reading, Pennsylvania A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog is a popular grammar school writing exercise incorporating all 26 letters of the alphabet in a 33-letter sentence. For those wishing to shorten the lesson, it may also be the seed of an...
Up or Down to You
John Musgrave Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk Robb Wilton, that acclaimed and dearly-loved British comedian of the thirties and forties, introduced one of his best wartime monologues with the classic first lines, "The day war broke out, my wife said to me, 'It's up to you!' I...
Quick Post: Noun Overuse Phenomenon
A subscriber from long ago rediscovered us again today, and asked particularly after one article: Noun Overuse Phenomenon Article, from Vol. 2, No. 4. So there it is -- click on the link to read it. It's a favorite!Please remember that if you are ordering VERBATIM as...
The Art and Technique of Citation Reading
Laurence Urdang Editor, VERBATIM The uninitiated often wonder where lexicographers find the words they list and describe in the dictionaries they compile, edit, and revise. Nonprofessional and unprofessional dictionary compilers may often get them from secondary...
VERBATIM on the Beach: A Summer Reading List
While neighboring sunbathers tan to the latest religious-conspiracy novel or Washington-insider tell-all, you can relax with one or another great book about language, some of them stranger than fiction or politics. For instance, it's difficult to put down Stefan...
VERBATIM, Summer 1999 Vol. 24 No. 3
Slayer Slang (Part 1) - The marvellous slang uses and inventions of the popular TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. by Michael Adams Identity and Language in the SM Scene - The importance of language in forming identity, and some misunderstandings that can arise. . . by...
Fun Things to Say in Spanish, French & English
Joseph K. Slap Los Angeles, California There are many people from Spanish-speaking nations here in southern California. It’s fun, for me and for them, to converse in Spanish. Those people get a big grin from my non-rhyming poem, in Spanish. I tell the people, "Quando...
Strictly Speaking
STRICTLY SPEAKING, Edwin Newman, Bobbs-Merrill, 1974, ix + 193 pp. $7.95 [Reviewed by Laurence Urdang] Linguists, especially lexicographers, are bound by a scholarly oath to describe--neither to prescribe nor proscribe--language, and their mission is to record, in as...
English as she is spoke: The new guide of the conversation in Portuguese and English in two parts, by Pedro Caroline (Jose da Fonseca)
We expect then, who the little book (for the care what we wrote him, and for her typographical correction) that may be worth the expectation of the studious persons, and especially of the Youth, at which we dedicate him particularly. With these words, Jose da Fonseca...
Assing Around
Back Issue – Verbatim
Reading the Traces of James Murray in the Oxford English Dictionary - Finding and enjoying the strong personality of James Murray through his OED definitions. by John Considine Assing Around - The many collocations and meanings of assand arse. by Jessy Randall and...
Favorite Word
Recently, the London Festival of Literature ran a contest to determine the UK's favorite words. Their winners were: 1. Serendipity 2. Quidditch 3. Love 4. Peace/Why (tie) 5. Onomatopoeia 6. Hope 7. Faith 8. Football/Muggle/Hello/Family (tie) 9. Compassion/Home (tie)...
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...
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...
English English
This originally appeared in Vol. VII, No. 1 I am chuffed as bollocks about a piece I wrote earlier this year in what Americans quaintly describe as The London Times. Depending upon your understanding of the idiom, this means that I am either pleased or displeased,...
A Backhanded Pardon
"My Lord, I had forgott the Fart." Queen Elizabeth I, as told by Aubrey When Oxford first appeared at Court, He blushed to hear a loud report Behind him as he bent his knee Before Elizabeth, and she Must have shown she too had heard By uttering a witty word, Such as:...
Epistolae 243
While reading William Dougherty’s article "Bromides" (XXIV/1) about the reluctance that physicians exhibit in speaking frankly about their patients’ life-threatening conditions, using euphemisms and circumlocutions, I remembered an experience I had that illustrates...
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