Edwards still reluctant to be subject of affair
John Edwards may have confessed to a “serious error in judgment,” but a close look at his word choice suggests he’s still shirking blame. In his Nightline interview, Edwards repeatedly constructed sentences in which he is the implicit but unnamed subject.
For example, the former North Carolina senator told [...]

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masterly vs. masterful
Want to sound like a sophisticated arm-chair commentator of the Beijing Olympics?

Mind the difference between masterly and masterful, a common description of Olympic performances.
Traditionally, masterful has described a powerful, even bullying, superior, while masterly has described the skill of a master of a profession or trade. A flawless gymnast is “masterly.” An austere [...]

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who vs. that
“Thank you, Jesus,” Victoria Osteen said after jurors rejected an assault charge from a Continental Airlines flight attendant.
“All I can say is that I’m grateful, and I just thank everybody that supported me,” she told reporters.
The attempt at graciousness was weakened by her word choice. Who is for people and named pets. That [...]

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avoiding ‘of our own’
Gymnatics coach Bela Karolyi can’t stop complaining about the allegedly under-age Chinese gymnasts.

“This is a joke,” he said. “We are people who have had children of our own, so we know what a 16-year-old should look like. They should not look like they are 7 and maybe still in diapers.”
In typical Bela-speak, [...]

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using neither, nor
Speaking is what first landed him in hot water and now, as he resigns, it continues to trip him up. Gloucester High School Principal Joseph Sullivan told Time magazine that the spike in teen pregnancies was related to a pact some girls had made to get pregnant and raise their babies together.

Mayor Carolyn [...]

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