New issue on the way!

Vol. 32 No. 1 is making its way to the printer tomorrow; check out the table of contents for the new issue:

Are Prepositions Necessary? by Rosemarie Ostler
Hanky-Panky, Hugger-Mugger, and Other Reduplicative Rhyming Compounds, by Amy Shuffelton and Jessy Randall
The Saloon-Bar Pundit: The Bane of the Philologist’s Life, by J.L.A. Hartley
Ha’penny Hurls and Chittering Bites: Talking Glaswegian, by June Sawers
Prepopr Splelnig, by Noam D. Plum
Learning Modern Turkish, by Kevin Revolinski
Never Say ‘Death’, by Daniel Krieger
The Power in the Punch of Welsh Valleys English, by Lucy Williams
Bits and Pieces, by David Galef
Beadlemania, by Jerome Betts

Plus some of our usual columns:
Classical Blather: Speak of the Devil! by Nick Humez
Obiter Dicta: I Sold My Writing for a Song, by Gloria Rosenthal
Horribile Dictu, by Mat Coward

and, of course, the Anglo-American crossword ...

Remember, the day this issue mails the subscription price rises to US$35/year (US$60/two years). (Add $5 per year for subscriptions sent outside North America, paid in US dollars; The UK £ price remains unchanged.) If you want to renew your subscription at our current rates, you have about ten days left to do so ...

Welcoming Mark Peters

We're happy to announce that Mark Peters has joined VERBATIM as a Contributing Editor. Mark is a frequent contributor to VERBATIM, and a language columnist for the parenting website Babble, as well as writing for American Speech, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Columbia Journalism Review, Esquire, The Funny Times, Good, Grist, Mental Floss, Nerve, and Psychology Today.

His book Yada Yada Doh! 111 Television Words That Made the Leap From the Screen to Society is forthcoming from Marion Street Press in 2008. He also has his own blog, Wordlustitude. And, quite conveniently for the editor, he lives in Chicago! We're glad he's coming on board to help us with reading submissions as well as keeping the blog updated.

If you'd like to send him a "welcome" message, his new email is Mark at verbatimmag.com.

New Work from David Galef

Long-time readers of VERBATIM will recognize the name David Galef; his pieces in our magazine consistently garner compliments (and the editor is always pleased to find a new one coming across her email transom).

But VERBATIM, as you all know, only publishes non-fiction, so if you've ever wondered how David Galef's light style translates to less-factual writing, you might want to check out his new book of short-shorts, A Man of Ideas and Other Stories.

Here are some teasers to pull you in ...

“As a souvenir from her stay in Botswana, Mary Edwards brought home a slave.”

"At age thirty, Daryl knew that his marriage was the best thing that ever
happened to him. At age forty, he felt the same about his divorce.”

“When I think of Duff, I think of the itchiness of everyday life and the
scratchiness of certain individuals. Duff wants to be loved for himself
alone, but what’s he got to offer? He’s a one-man conversation with a
personality like a sound-loop.”

This new book is available at Noemi Press; click on the image above for more information.

Yet Another Quick Post

We had some more requests for back articles this week, so two more are available to read online:

Preposition Pollution, by Barbara DuBois, and Up and Down to You, by John Musgrave.

An easy way to see the few articles we have available in html is to check out the Table of Contents -- available articles will show up as links ... of course, that file needs to be updated, too ...

Two new issues are at the printer; I hope to see proofs in the next few days. They'll mail when our mailer has a slot, but with any luck before the end of January!

Interested in a quick peek at the tables of contents for those issues:

Here's Vol. XXXI/3:

Stalin, Marr, and the Struggle for a Soviet Linguistics Neile A. Kirk & Bernard Mees
When is a Word Not a Word? Peter Gilliver
Plurality David Galef
Is There an Information Professional In the House? Rachel Singer Gordon
Man Detained at Supermax Prison For Word Transposition Kenneth W. Cress
What I Told the Student From Brooklyn About Why He Flunked English Louis Phillips
Dogspeak, So to Speak Janice Arenofsky
Senior Glassware Maintenance Engineer Norman Ball
Pimping David A. Cory
Epitaph for Gertrude Stein Louis Phillips
You’ve Got Game IV Gloria Rosenthal
Classical Blather: Pound Hammers (and Toe Trucks) Nick Humez
As the Word Turns: Some Golden Oldies Barry Baldwin
Obiter Dicta: A Sampling of the Genius of Saki Edwin Rosenberg
And a review of Labels for Locals, by Paul Dickson (review by Mark Peters)

And here's Vol. XXX1/4:

Pronouns in Thai Euan Harvey
The Un-History of the Undead Tim Kane
A Car By Any Other Name Keith Hall
The National Report Card Louis Phillips
A Scientific Investigation Into a Linguistic Matter of Some Importance Marvin E. Mengeling
Biotechnologos: Words of the Life Business Michael J. Corey
Book Production Jargon Jaqueline Cangro
Pension Fund Language Joanne Mason
Xmas, Yttrium, & Zwieback: Unusual Initial Pairs in English Paul Anthony Jones
Anyone for Gerunding? C J Moore
Classical Blather: The Wee Folk Nick Humez
and a long-overdue review of
The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English, by Grant Barrett (reviewed by Mark Peters) -- but don't worry! The book's still available.

Quick Post: Noun Overuse Phenomenon

A subscriber from long ago rediscovered us again today, and asked particularly after one article: Noun Overuse Phenomenon Article, from Vol. 2, No. 4. So there it is -- click on the link to read it. It's a favorite!

Please remember that if you are ordering VERBATIM as a gift subscription and our link is recalcitrant, you can always let the order go through and email us with the gift recipient's address. We are not so overwhelmed by the press of orders that we won't be able to match up your payment and your gift ...

Our New Address

VERBATIM has moved, and despite our renewing the forwarding request several times, the Chicago Post Office has decided it would be easier to pretend we don't exist. So if your letter is returned, our new address is:

PO Box 597302
Chicago IL 60659

Our old address may be lingering (in fact, the business reply mail cards went in with the wrong one this last time) but we're trying to find all the instances of "4907 N. Washtenaw" and expunge them.

I am so sorry for the inconvenience ...

Crossword #104 Answers

If you were missing the answers to Crossword #104 in XXXI/1, you're not the only one! Click here for them, which I know you're only using to check your own answers, right?