Bruce D. Price Word-Wise New York, New York Have you noticed a new "clunk-clunk" sound in the English language? Phrases such as "patient starter package" for sample? "Drug dosage forms" for pills? "Health cause" for sickness? "Increased labor market participation...

Sol Saporta University of Washington (retired) In lectures delivered in Japan in 1987, Noam Chomsky discussed the notion of a ‘conceptual framework’ which he proposed as ‘a common human property’ He suggested that ‘the concepts . . . are available, independently of...

Abasement Flat: Digs hard-up tenants lower themselves by renting. About-facetiousness: earnestness; the reverse of frivolity. About-preface: Epilogue or afterword; an antonym for introduction. Acuwomen: Form of female intuition; shrewdness peculiar to women....

"There was a certain man..." begins many a parable; yet the identity of the man is anything but certain. Monty Python's reluctant messiah in The Life of Brian, dropped by a joyriding space buggy onto a Jerusalem Speakers' Corner, tries to blend in: "There were these...

Darwin, Desmond Morris, and David Atten-borough, to mention but three, teach us that man is just another animal: a hairless primate distinguished by uniquely complex language patterns. In DNA terms a human being is more than 95 percent chimpanzee. Does that explain...

SIC! SIC! SIC! is a regular feature of every issue, in which we rely on readers to send us funny errors made in (thank goodness) other publications. (And those on signs, in form letters, etc., etc. We're capable of finding the funny errors in our own publication...

Gary Wiener Pittsford, New York As a startup on my computer I have this soundbite: Homer Simpson, down on himself as usual, in dubious assessment of his self-worth, saying, "I am a WEE-NER." Homer surely evokes a good chuckle from his audience, and best of all, the...