Anthony Esolen

We in English have an odd and useful tool: a possessive that can be appended to an entire phrase, rather than to just one word.  Look at the following: Il figlio del re d’Inghilterra  (Italian) Le fils du roi d’Angleterre  (French) Der Sohn des Koeniges von . . . . Continue Reading »

It may please some of my readers to learn that the word  whore  and the name  Cher  are etymologically related. But how? The first thing we need to clear out of the way is that  w  at the beginning of  whore.  It doesn’t belong there. It’s . . . . Continue Reading »

The Passive Voice is abused when the agent of the verb  is not general  and is indeed  of consequence,  but the writer wishes to obfuscate. Bureaucrats and politicians abuse the passive all the time,  to hide responsibility. Consider the following sentences: The . . . . Continue Reading »

Lent  is a most unusual word. Germans call the forty day period between Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday by the perfectly reasonable name  Fastenzeit:  the time for fasting. The French, mishearing the Latin  quadrigesima, fortieth,  call it  Careme; whether they . . . . Continue Reading »

The Passive Voice is used badly when the writer tucks the real item of interest into a prepositional phrase, obscuring the agent of the verb and deflecting the emphasis. Consider these sentences: The slider was hammered by Colavito into the left field bleachers. Colavito hammered the slider . . . . Continue Reading »

It’s a good old Anglo Saxon word, but it did not mean to grow angry, scowling, waiting the chance to strike. It meant, simply,  to boil.  Why didn’t the Anglo Saxons say  boil if they meant  boil? Or  bo’ll,  if they were from Southwark? Or  . . . . Continue Reading »

The passive voice is like any tool. You can use it well, you can use it badly, and you can abuse it right out. If I use a garden hose with a nozzle to spray water on my flowers, that’s nice. If I turn the nozzle on jet-stream and churn up the dirt underneath them, that’s . . . . Continue Reading »

Why do we say, “John goes to the pawn shop today,” but “John  went  to the pawn shop yesterday?”  Where does that come from? German doesn’t have it. In the Krautic tongue, people say  ich gehe, I go,  and  ich ginge, I went.  The . . . . Continue Reading »

My students have been taught that a verb is in the  passive voice  whenever a form of the verb  to be  appears. They have also been taught that it is never to be used. They are wrong on both counts. I’ll speak about the use of the passive voice later. For . . . . Continue Reading »

I’ve seen the adverbs  firstly, secondly, thirdly,  and so forth, used in texts that are pretty old, but there’s no reason for them. The forms aren’t logical, since  first, second, third, last  are already adverbs. They don’t need to have the  . . . . Continue Reading »