Around 1980, those of us coming up in literary studies learned that we could no longer refer to a work of art. The term had become obsolete. If you uttered it even in passing, you appeared behind the times, not up-to-date. You had to use another word: text. Roland Barthes announced . . . . Continue Reading »
If we can’t find a word to describe our situation, we have scarcely begun to understand it. Continue Reading »
The unfinished memoirs of Dietrich von Hildebrand and Sebastian Haffner should be a warning to us not to make any thoughtless Nazi comparisons. Continue Reading »
Ossa Latinitatis Sola ad Mentem Reginaldi Rationemque: The Mere Bones of Latin According to the Thought & System of Reginaldby reginaldus thomas foster and daniel patricius mccarthycatholic university of america, 831 pages, $39.95 A recent online video shows a math teacher expounding the . . . . Continue Reading »
One Sunday in high school, we went to the Anglo-Catholic parish where my headmaster served as an assistant priest. Catechized by evangelical Episcopalians and Presbyterians, I believed that the Bible was divinely inspired by God. But I had never seen it treated as such in a physical or ritual way. . . . . Continue Reading »
The sooner parents and teachers coach their charges out of the “like” disease, the more their charges will grow and prosper. Continue Reading »
Why Only Us: Language and Evolutionby robert c. berwick and noam chomskymit press, 224 pages, $22.95Perhaps the most sensitive point of contact between religion and science is the issue of human distinctiveness. Christian teaching affirms that there is an “ontological discontinuity” between . . . . Continue Reading »
Despite its title, Tom Wolfe’s The Kingdom of Speech isn’t mainly about language. It’s about evolution, feckless intellectuals, and leftist politics. Continue Reading »
Gwynne’s Grammar: The Ultimate Introduction to Grammar and the Writing of Good English? by n. m. gwynne ?knopf, 288 pages, $19.95 One of the first axioms of the field of linguistics is that the rules of usage in any language at any time are wholly conventional. Proper grammar and style have no . . . . Continue Reading »
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