Being in a generous holiday mood, the Grammarnator will restrict himself to one error this week, letting a couple of others (as in “couple of good books,” Awesomenator, not “couple good books”) slip by. He suspects that Mr. Basham's piece on partridges (what do you call a family of them?) and ruffed grouses (greese?) probably did not originally refer to a bird that “forges on the ground,” but one that forages. Did spelcheck get overly aggressive and offer an alternative to what was correct in the first place? I know that I snuck in another criticism. I did that just to see if my spellcheck accepted “snuck.” It popped up underlined, but who could possibly prefer “sneaked”?
Happy 2012 to all. The year will bring us the 150th anniversary of the bloodiest day in American history and the 50th anniversary of a traumatic day for my generation, but I'm sure that it will provide many stimulating and fulfilling moments as well.
