A recent article in the Los Angeles Times led with the headline:
Ex-Army official says he lost post in KBR flap
Flap is slang for: “uproar, commotion, scandal,” (Concise Oxford Dictionary). “Flap!” Read the
story. You decide if it should be called a “flap” which carries a soft connotation, as if the event
is marginal, or a “scandal” which [...]

The rhetoric surrounding the death of Tim Russert did not take me off guard. Though saddened and admittedly prayerful for the loss of his humanity on our fair planet, I questioned the repeated encomiums (particularly those issuing from other NBC colleagues of Mr. Russert’s from CNBC (the financial incarnation) and MSNBC (the political version) marked [...]

e are getting used to receiving all sorts of diversions from friends and fellow workers by their emailings over the Internet these days. Many of these diversions come in the form of word play or puns. Although an analysis of humor is scarcely funny, let’s take a deeper look at the various structures that [...]

Colleen Williams on Los Angeles’ local KNBC Channel 4 News reported that a woman in Riverside County had been struck by lightning. Williams said, “…she (the victim) experienced moderate injuries, but she is expected to survive.”
Williams should have said, “and” she is expected to survive.
“But” changes the meaning to: [...]

My wife gardens for pleasure and for the pleasure of others. She loves dogs and other animals. However, when the Newfoundland “puppy” next door wanders into the garden, patience suffers.
Sniffing around innocently, the 80 pound Newf (his father is 180 lbs.) knows little of the osteospermum and the salvia officinalis he “bewilders” with his bear [...]