Language

When people start arguing (and peeving) about points of English usage, a familiar refrain is that the usage they complain about is not logical. I've tried to explain ( "English ain't algebra" ) that such an approach is not fruitful. But now the effervescent Kory Stamper of Merriam-Webster, writing at harm-less drudg-ery puts paid to that line of argument: English is a little bit like a child. We love and nurture it into being, and once it gains gross motor skills, it starts going exactly where we don't want it to go: it heads right for the goddamned light sockets.

Towson athletic director Mike Waddell said Wednesday that an internal investigation into football coach Rob Ambrose's program revealed no excess in practice areas but did find issues with the coaching staff's use of profane language. “We have standards at Towson, core ideals about how we act and deal with our students,” he said. “We've talked to the entire coaching staff about that.” A letter sent to the Towson's school newspaper, The Towerlight, signed by former player Trevor Walker and 26 others who wished to remain anonymous, accused Ambrose of inaccurately recording practice hours so as to exceed limits set by the NCAA.

Fifty years ago, people in the United States had very real fears of the possibility of nuclear annihilation in an exchange of nuclear missiles with the Soviet Union. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 brought that fear very close. But the year before, Americans had endured a potentially graver threat, not to their physical security, but to their culture. That threat, to the demise of American culture and perhaps to language itself, came from a book. And the book was a dictionary. David Skinner, writing in The Story of Ain't: America, Its Language, and the Most Controversial Dictionary Ever Published  (Harper, 349 pages, $26.99)

The Board of County Commissioners will hold its public hearing on Tuesday, Oct. 30, regarding the proposal to designate English as the official language of Carroll County. The hearing will be held at 7 p.m. at the New Windsor Community Building, Community Meeting Room, 1100 Green Valley Road, New Windsor. This ordinance, if passed, would recognize English as the language in which all official county business will be conducted. The ordinance, as proposed, can be read HERE Commissioner Haven Shoemaker, who sponsored the legislation, said in a statement that it would "ensure that all official county business is conducted in English, which will save the county money, simplify county communications and provide incentives to learn English to those living in Carroll County.

Amid the quaint brick storefronts of Westminster's Main Street, Lily's Mexican Market sells Virgin of Guadalupe statues, sacks of dried beans and paddle-shaped cactus leaves. A mile away, the aisles of Las Palmeras grocery store are stocked with Salvadoran cheeses and pastries. A nearby Catholic church draws more than 200 people to a Spanish Mass each Sunday. Mexican and Central American immigrants have flocked to Carroll County over the past decade, drawn by pastures and orchards that remind them of the rural villages in which they were raised.

The Carroll County commissioners who want to make English the official language of the county forget that German was spoken in the county as much as English during its first hundred years or so ("Carroll commissioners might make English official language," Sept. 26). Also, after the Native American languages, Spanish was the first language in the continental U.S. I don't like the racist posturing. MaryAnn H. Gregory, Westminster

If you have not read the civilized and illuminating exchange between Robert Lane Greene and Bryan Garner at "Which Language Rules to Flout. Or Flaunt?" in The New York Times , hie yourself over there.  You will discover how slight the differences are between a "prescriptive descriptivist" (Greene) and a "descriptive prescriptivist" (Garner). You will see an acknowledgment that prescriptivism without descriptivism fosters bad advice and that descriptivism without prescriptivism fails to deliver the informed advice that writers seek.

A Carroll County commissioner has drafted legislation that would make English the county's official language — and if it passes, Carroll would become the third Maryland locality to enact such legislation this year, following Frederick and Queen Anne's counties. Commissioner Haven Shoemaker, who represents the Hampstead area, said he will ask his colleagues to introduce the proposal at the board's session Thursday. If they are amenable, a public hearing would be scheduled before a vote.

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a moderately obscure but evocative word with which you may not be acquainted, another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: TRUCULENT People writing about politics or language usage may attempt to start out clamly and reasonably, but they tend very quickly to become quick to argue or fight, to become aggressively defiant, harsh, rude, scathing, bellicose. In a word, truculent . We get the word (pronounced TRUK-yoo-lent)

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a moderately obscure but evocative word with which you may not be acquainted, another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: FESTSCHRIFT English is a promiscuous language that bears traces of every other language that ever spent the night. Or, if you prefer a gentler metaphor, some foreign words are naturalized without getting their names changed at Ellis Island.  One such word is festschrift (pronounced FEST-schrift)