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,...
Scottish Proverbs
Scottish Proverbs, Compiled by the Editors of Hippocrene Books, i-xi +111 pp., New York, Hippocrene Books, 1998. ISBN 0-7818-0648-8. $14.95 "A fox always smells his own hole first," my mother, a lady of undiluted Highland Scottish descent, liked to say. As she uttered...
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)...
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...
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....
Classical Blather
What is so rare as a day in June? And what is so common asa rhyme for it? Speakers of English through the century seem tohave delighted in the sound of the double o, rotund and warm,gently terminating in the soft glide of the n "as if it wereloath to cease."1 Popular...
Reading the Traces of James Murray in the Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary has often been described, rightly, as a remarkably readable set of books. Rose Macaulay’s description of "the inexhaustible pleasure to be extracted from the perusal of this dictionary" is typical of a long series of similar responses,...
Winter 2000 Back Issue
Where Did He Put The Pen of My Aunt? Navajo Revealed David C. Cates Maplewood, New Jersey Intricate miracles underlie even ordinary events like sunshine, eyesight, and air. Yet their ordinariness seems to stifle the kindling of wonder. This may be the point of a...
Authors and Articles Vol XXIII
Authors and Articles VolumeNumberAuthorTitle XXIII1Schindler, Marc A.(Dia)critic's Corner XXIII1Richler, HowardGalling Gallicisms of Quebec English XXIII1Temianka, DanielThe King of Wordsmiths XXIII1Davidson, J. A.The Problem of Names XXIII1Crilly, JosephineTurning To...
Welcoming Mark Peters
We're happy to announce that Mark Peters has joined VERBATIM as a Contributing Editor. Mark is a frequent contributor to VERBATIM, and a language columnist for the parenting website Babble, as well as writing for American Speech, The Chronicle of Higher Education,...
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...
You’ve Got Game!
It's almost time for holiday shopping, so we've collated SIX YEARS of Gloria Rosenthal's "You've Got Game" game reviews here in one humongous blog post for you! Here are all the games she's reviewed -- have...
Word Words
Jon O. Newman United States Circuit Judge We need some new words to describe words. English already has several well known -onym words (from the Greek onyma meaning 'name'), such as synonym (same meaning), antonym (opposite meaning), and homonym (same sound). Less...
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, 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...
Preposition Pollution
Foreigners trying to learn English often have more trouble with our prepositions than with any other feature. But I see and hear so many awkward uses of prepositions lately that I think we all have more trouble with them than with any other feature--and more trouble...
All about All
In the movie Spartacus,1 the Roman general, Crassus, ensures the cooperation of the slave dealer, Batiatus, by making him the following promise: "I authorize you to be the agent for the sale of all survivors." When Crassus wins the final battle and orders that all...
Darn, Durn, Down, Doon, Damn
Dwight Bolinger Professor of Linguistics Emeritus Harvard University Minced oaths are etymological landmines, and if I were a better guesstymologist I probably would not tread on this one; but if it is a coincidence it is too good to be true, so here goes....
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...
New issue on the way!
Vol. 32 No. 1 is making its way to the printer tomorrow; check out the table of contents for the new issue:Are Prepositions Necessary? by Rosemarie OstlerHanky-Panky, Hugger-Mugger, and Other Reduplicative Rhyming Compounds, by Amy Shuffelton and Jessy RandallThe...
Authors and Articles Vol XXVII
Authors and Articles VolumeNumberAuthorTitle XXVII1Hargraves, OrinRendering the Language of Daad XXVII1Eskenazi, GeraldUnexpected Surprises XXVII1Galef, DavidA Column on Columns XXVII1Wood, D. RussThe Slang of the Day XXVII1Powell, SteveFancy a Viking, Sooty?...
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