word

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Why I Doesn’t Uses Grammar Checker

I do a lot of writing, mostly in Microsoft Word—the software I love to hate. The built-in spell check can be helpful, catching typos for me as I write.  (It can’t catch a “word-o,” however, which means that any remaining mistakes can be potentially pretty funny—or embarrassing.)

Then there’s the grammar checker. Who invented this thing? What were they thinking? I know English is a difficult language, but the checker doesn’t just stumble over exceptions to the rules. It mutilates perfectly acceptable prose. Continue reading →

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Following the Instructions

Have you ever suddenly noticed that God is telling you something, and no matter where you turn, you can’t avoid the message? You could open the Bible to any passage, turn on the radio, have a conversation with a friend, read a book—and they’re all on the same theme.

In the past, this happened when I was doing something contrary to God’s will. In other words, I was sinning. I could try to shut out my conscience, but God was truly the Hound of Heaven, pursuing me relentlessly until I finally gave up and repented. Every sermon, every devotional, even totally secular activities such as reading a news magazine or watching TV were a reminder that God wanted not just my obedience, but me.

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The Bible is Better than Harry Potter!

Think of your favorite book, the one you read in one sitting because you just couldn’t bear to put it down. The Hobbit? One of the Harry Potter books? A best seller by John Grisham or Clive Cussler? I bet it wasn’t the Bible.

We agree that the Bible is important reading, but is it exciting? Once you know that Noah survives the flood, that David confesses his sin regarding Uriah and Bathsheba, and that Jesus rises  from the dead, you’ve got to admit that the Bible just isn’t that suspenseful. In fact, reading it often feels like hard work.

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Say What?

dord

Among the approximately 200,000 words in the English language (give or take a few), “Dord” is unique.

Oh, it’s in the dictionary, or at least it used to be, right there between Dorcopsis (a genus of small kangaroo) and doré (meaning gold). But it doesn’t mean anything. In fact, it was there by accident. Dord isn’t really a word.

Turns out that for five years, from 1934 through 1939 , Webster’s New International Dictionary mistakenly included dord as a real word, defining it as a noun meaning density.

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