Sir: I read in a current novel that "Adam sat his briefcase in a chair," and I often hear friends say such things as "I was laying on the couch." Am I out of touch with the real world, or what?
- Laverne M.
Answer: Not when you object to sins like those. Adam should have set, not sat, his briefcase in the chair, and your friends should have been lying, not laying, on the couch.
If there was any justice, Adam wouldn't have a briefcase to abuse like that, and your so-called friends wouldn't have couches to lie around on. Won't somebody pass a law or something?
Sir: If one worries about ending a sentence with a preposition, would there be a problem with "the person in whose name the car is registered"?
- Shirley M.
Answer: Not a bit. But one shouldn't worry about ending a sentence with a preposition in the first place. Especially, in the case you cited, if it's the owner's name you're registering it in.
Sir: Your veteran airplane pilot was telling you the right stuff about designations for cities, and you should have listened. All have combinations of three letters and/or numbers to identify them. For example, if we went from RVS to SKI, we would be traveling from Tulsa, Okla., to Alva, Okla. From Campbellsville, Ky., to Kansas City, Mo., is AAS to GVW. How many readers would know that Nashville, Tenn., is BNA because the field was once Berry (Field), NA-shville?
- Ed M.
Answer: Wow, I got out of my depth there in a hurry, didn't I? Other pilots have been straightening me out ever since, some of them gently. Walter B. backed up the explanation of BNA for Nashville. Chuck J. pointed out that San Francisco is SFO rather than merely SF so it won't be confused with Santa Fe, San Fernando, Sturgeon Falls, and so on. It just proves that flying around like birds is too blamed much for some of us earthlings.
Sir: A reader asked for a word that means a lull in conversation. May I invent one? Diatus. "Dia" for dialog and "tus" for hiatus, a pause. If you like it, how about giving me credit for coining it?
- Phil Moss
Answer: Sure, Phil. The credit's yours. Let lexicographers everywhere take note - after a brief diatus, of course.
RECORD of the Week, noted by Anne S.:
"I read in an article that `deep-water running was the cornerstone that we built on.' I guess some of these corner stores really do have everything!"