I once saw Erykah Badu in concert, at a northern California stop of the second Lilith Fair. She was beautiful and graceful and elegant and regal, and she put out some killer live music.

She did not, however, take off her clothes, as she did while filming a music video in Dallas last month. According to the New York Daily News, Erykah walked through the plaza where John F. Kennedy was shot in 1963, disrobing as she walked and finally falling to the ground while the sound of a gunshot is heard.

Whatever each of us thinks of Erykah’s music, politics, or art, I think we can all agree that someone didn’t pay enough attention in English class, as evidenced here:

“The City attorney’s office and the Dallas Police Department has decided to charge the entertainer known as Erykah Badu with disorderly conduct,” a police spokesman said.

“After much discussion we feel that these charges best fit her conduct when she disrobed in a public place without disregard to individuals and small children who were close by.”

Let’s graciously ignore the silly use of individuals and small children here for a moment and focus on the real crime. When the police spokesperson says, “without disregard,” what is he or she saying? Yes, it’s our old nemesis, the double negative. Disregard means without regard. If the police department accuses Erykah of being “without disregard,” it is accusing her of being “without without regard.”

Please also note that one does not have regard to something or someone, but regard for. If the spokesperson had been thinking while he or she spoke (hey, isn’t that a spokesperson’s job?), he or she would have said, “…in a public place without regard for…”

Full story here.

If you’ve got one to share, send it to me at scrivener @ this domain. Thanks, Ryan, and may you all have wonderful Weeke Nds!

Thanks, Crissy, and keep them coming! And may you all have a HUGE weekend!

Thanks, Ryan! Keep those photos coming, all you sharp-eyed, urban-commando linguists!

Have a great weekend! And if you spot anything like this, please do send it my way!

I don’t know where this came from or why it seems to be proliferating, but please take a look at this Google News search for “an historic.” As I write this, this search returns 3,144 results for this exact phrase.

Meanwhile, people are also writing an heroic, an hearing, and even an humiliating.

I know this isn’t any of you, but if you know someone who’s doing this, beg him or her to stop!

The rule you learned whenever you learned it still applies. Use an in front of most words beginning with a vowel sound, such as honor, apple, and irritating. Use a in front of everything else. Here in the United States, we pronounce the /h/ sound in front of words like historic, humiliating, and heroic, so those words take a.

Now please do what you can to reverse the tide of this, an ‘orrible practice if e’er I ‘eard one!

1. She likes to ride her stationary bike for exercise every morning.
2. I have a locked drawer in my desk where I like to keep my fancy stationary.

If you are talking about the condition of being immobile, you are talking about being stationary, the adjective. If you are talking about paper, note cards, and writing implements, you are talking about stationery, the noun. This means that sentence #2 is incorrect. Notice the difference in spelling, please. That difference is actually your key to remembering which is which.

A long time ago (and not too long ago if you’ve lived in Hilo, Hawaii), you’d get your letter-writing supplies at a STATIONER. Notice how that doesn’t work if you wanted to spell it STATIONAR. See? You’d get STATIONERY at the STATIONER.

Now that you know this, you will never have a problem keeping them straight!

I know. It’s definitely not one of Schoolhouse Rock’s stronger moments, this one; it lacks the catchy elegance of “Conjunction Junction” or “Lolly Lolly Lolly get your adverbs here,” but I wanted to give you a quick refresher on what prepositions are, even though this isn’t really about prepositions, what I am about to say.

Now take a quick look at the titles of this, this, and this Wikipedia article.

We’re just looking at the titles here, not the articles themselves. Do you notice something about the prepositions? In standard English style, prepositions (except at the beginning) in titles are usually not capitalized, especially when they are short words. You’ll notice, too, that the, a, and an, except when they appear at the beginning of a title, are also not capitalized.

Wikipedia is not the arbiter of style (I am working on a DailyWritingTip about terminal S and apostrophes, and I am coming after Wikipedia loaded for BEAR!), but in general the community does manage to get most things right. In this way, we have articles about The Cat in the Hat, “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” and “Over the River and through the Woods.” Many people feel the need to capitalize EVERY word in a title, but that’s not you or me, because we know better, right?

You will please thank me for resisting my usual temptation to get punny by asking if I may preposition you.