Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2005 | ||
From the heart
SallieS@Juno.com In an act of outright plagiarism and romance, I offer a column by Richard Lederer, a founding board member of SPELL and defender of our precious language. Ive met Rich through his contributions to SPELL/Binder, the bi-monthly newsletter of SPELL Society for the Preservation of English Language and Literature as well as several of his books. Lederer wrote Crazy English and The Write Way, in which he collaborated with another respected SPELLer and verbalizer, Richard Dowis. (Darn. I wanted to use the word verbaphile, which Im sure is a word, but my Oxford English Dictionary does not allow it. That great tome recognizes verbalizer in the same sense I was looking for, so verbalizer it is.) The newsletter, the stuff writers enjoy, has come to my rescue more than once when Im late and past deadline. Thats when I reach for my stash of SPELL/Binders. Ive sent Rich and Dick a column or printed mistake, but not often. As I browse through Murderers Row, the centerfold of mostly newspaper errors sent in by readers, I dread that Ill find a paragraph of my work there with some glaring mistake someone else caught, but which neither my editors nor I noticed before publication. What would be my chances of selling something I wrote to a newspaper that I had publicly faulted? Oh well, here are a couple from the current issue: In the Westport News in New York, an official explained that his countys real estate is so desirable. You even see places close enough to the airport that residents can see pilots in the cockpit selling fast. Huh? And a California reader saw an ad for one of Americas most respected news sources: The average computer has 110 keys. We say you only need three CNN. This little quiz came to me courtesy of one of my regular column-fodder providers, yet Im reticent to give her name. It embarrasses her to be identified as a member of Mensa, but Id have to say that, since the quiz she sent me was published in the Mensa Bulletin. Richard Lederer put this together, and prefaces it with this tidbit: William Shakespeare gave the world the expression to wear ones heart on ones sleeve to show ones emotions. Iago says it in Othello. So, to set your heart a-quivering well ahead of Valentines Day, each of the definitions below may be matched with hearty answers in the box. (If I were my editor, Id print the answers upside down, or elsewhere on the page, but .) to take seriously please be merciful beloved person be reassured to desire earnestly to be frightened discouraged incomplete, as in an effort complete, as in an effort substantial, as a meal mental anguish the central issue brave, courageous uninvolved emotionally the central issue to swear to be telling the truth characterizing a good person characterizing a cruel person entertainment idol to give up to regret deeply and painfully one who shows extravagant sympathy to memorize indigestion to play hard just what I like a change of mind to reassure the essential emotion, as of a nation youthful in attitude to be completely frightened characterizing an intimate conversation thoroughly evil cheerful, free from anxiety suspenseful ANSWERS: 1. take to heart 2. have a heart 3. sweetheart 4. take heart 5. have ones heart set on 6. have ones heart in ones mouth 7. disheartened 8. halfhearted 9. wholehearted 10. hearty 11. heartache 12. heart of the matter 13. lionhearted 14. heart isnt in it 15. have ones heart in the right place 16. cross ones heart 17. heart of gold, good-hearted 18. heartless, heart of stone, hard-hearted 19. heart throb 20. lose heart 21. eat ones heart out 22. bleeding heart 23. learn by heart 24. heartburn 25. play ones heart out 26. after my own heart 27. change of heart 28. put ones heart at rest 29. the heartbeat 30. young at heart 31. to have ones heart in ones throat 32. heart-to-heart 33. black-hearted 34. light-hearted 35. heart-stopping
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