Category Archives: Education

More Is Not Necessarily More

A friend recently castigated my writing with the criticism that I was a sloppy writer. He was speaking the truth and I said, “My father always thought that I was sloppy too.” “You end up writing too much.” Dannett was editor for a famed newspaper’s obit section. “Sometimes more is more.” “I wish that you […]

PASSING GRADE by Peter Nolan Smith

My older brother worked too much. Frunk had a big house on Milton Hill and I was in Boston to visit my father. Frunk was at his office, as were most lawyers in Boston on a weekday. “Meet me at Durgin Park.” I loved their chowder. “Can’t.” He sounded stressed. “What about Jacob Wirth?” Their […]

New Words for the Modern Age

Every year Webster Dictionary enters modern slang into the lexicon of the English language. Most English speakers are light years ahead of the educational tome in their depravity, but here are some words which might make it into the 2012. 1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was […]

So You Think English is Easy

Let’s face it – English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore […]

The 10 Unanswerables

According to the Old Testament Moses descended from Mount Sinai with two stone tablets inscribed with 17 Commandments and although the adopted son of the pharoah was the only man in the crowd who could read, Yahweh deigned not to write in Egyptian, so there could have been a thousand commandments for all Moses or […]