My coworkers have asked me to stop muttering "Charles" over and over. I'd best not start calling it out loud. It's hard to pronounce in one syllable for a rhotic speaker, I think, without winding up sounding like Tom Brokaw.

But the 'People call me "Bob"' segment of Mr. Cunningham's recording at the above URL has a near-perfect "aw" and "ah" that could easily become the alt.usage.english standard for "aw" and

"Touching up" is what some women accused the new governor of California of doing. It may be more BrE or Commonwealth usage than US. I'm not familiar with it in US English. Here it'd be "feeling up". -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr.

Oh, by the way, some of us really do have a fairly large number of friends in or from Latin America, none of whom are either gardeners or hammock makers. You have something against gardeners and hammock makers? (Okay, none of *my* Latin American

Every so often, some poster comes up with the astounding information that the United States of America is located in North America, Thank you for sharing all that with us Tony, but as you are a comparitively new addition to AUE (whereas I have

Before knocking yourself on a search for some alternative, have a look at what the dictionaries say about "anniversary." Like ... for the passage of time periods as short as a week. Usage doesn't necessarily match up to etymology.

Which brings me on to another point. The second syllable of "idea" I pronounce the same as "ear", but I ... don't like that either, it seems much easier just to say + (without pronouncing the R of course). I pronounce

Those names in which we continue to identify males and females have a sexual component: "Congresswoman" would appear to be an exception to this, "Congresswoman" is perhaps exceptional, but note that "Congressman" is

("Administer" means 'cause (e.g. a medication or examination) to be given' and "administrate" means 'oversee the management and operations of'.) What about administering a trust fund? Hm. Not a locution I use

The only city in the north that I know of that is dry is Evanston, Illinois. I don't know if that's been changed or not. Swarthmore, Pa. is, or so I am informed by a student at Swarthmore College. Rockport, Mass. is or was until recently.