David Lazarus in a recent Consumer Confidential column in the Los Angeles Times quotes Michael Shames of the Consumer Action Network on the “duopoly* of “two titans battling for the hearts, minds and wallets of consumers.” The two competing titans are posed as cable versus telecom, sort of like Coca Cola versus Pepsi Cola.
Lazarus writes [...]

John Bollinger creator of the eponymous Bollinger Bands, an astute means of emphasizing “technicals” instead of “fundamentals” to gauge the strength of an equity and its movement in the stock market, recently bemoaned rising inflation and a falling market, yet with one “positive” sign of “strength” which he named as Wells Fargo, the large banking [...]

Comedienne Chelsea Handler spoke of the 5.4 magnitude Chino Hills earthquake in Southern California 7/29/08 as a trembler–a person who trembles or shakes. (Concise Oxford Dictionary)
Is Handler personifying the earthquake (using anthropomorphism)? But if she is personifying earthquakes–giving them human qualities–why would such a fearsome “type” such as an earthquake tremble?
Handler, a normally articulate funny [...]

Turning phrases to make a point
Clever and not so clever writers use old rhetorical devices as antimetabole and chiasmus to get our attention. What separates good from bad turns of phrases (or clauses) we leave up to you.
antimetabole is the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in reverse grammatical order (ex: “I know [...]

In a recent posting, we complained about the lack of coverage by American media of the traditional, long-standing Olympic sports, notably Track & Field. We remarked that such sports as gymnastics, swimming, and beach volleyball, while themselves respectable, were emphasized disproportionately, that this was the case because NBC (National Broadcasting Network) was delivering audiences to [...]