Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004

 He was called Big Joe.
 Big Joe, as he was called,...
 He was known as Big Joe.
 Big Joe, as he was known (as?),...

My dictionaries say that to trap means
1 to place in a confining position
2 to catch in or as if in a trap,
Is the usage below regarded as 1? If so, is there any connotation

I'm continuing to read the Lemony Snicket series to the child next
door. It's not a bad book series to read a ten-year-old -- just enough
playfulness to keep an older person entertained. Ecch! How revolting!
I just described myself as an older person! A portent of thing to

Yes, yes I know. Some of us get bent out of shape when others quote
whole articles.
If that's you, go ahead, sputter away and take your best shot.
In the meantime, I suspect the rest of the assembled company will enjoy

The nightmare of writing any book on grammar, punctuation,
etc., is the inevitability of making mistakes yourself.
And so you end up not looking like you know what you are on
about.

In browsing earlier posts, I came across the "Hi John" posting. The various
combinations offered are as follows:
1. Hi John
2. Hi, John

In the last couple of years, I've noticed a sharp increase in use of the
phrase "through the roof."  The phrase suggests something going so high
that it metaphorically pokes through the roof of the building where it's
taking place, so for example one could say sales are going ...

Yesterday's Toronto Star had a prominently placed human-interest story
about the retirement of a couple named Pefhany.  (Search news.google.com
for that name to see it.)
It was only the second place I can remember ever coming across the name.

Hello community,
I've got an intriguing question for native speakers. Some may consider it a
matter of hair splitting, however, here is the sentence from a speech on
glabalisation by Kofi Annan:

English usage in the news: 2003 recap
http://londonelegance.com/aue/2003/
This page lists some memorable, and not so memorable, moments in 2003 where
English usage were in the spotlight....

L. Trask and others make use of the words `weak interruption'
to define when bracketing commas may be used. Is this just
a syntactic definition?
 [Trask]

Many Asian languages get along without the word "The".  I believe it has some
uses.  I had written in a recent post "...will identify numerous causes
underlying...."  That didn't sound like what I wanted to say.  I meant to say
that science "will identify the numerous causes..."  ...

Didn't someone write a defense for using "literally" non-literally?  I
think it hinged on the idea that other words are used metaphoricallly, so
why should we complain if "literally" is used to mean something other than
"literally"?  

The following sentence is from a monograph on Chinese writing:
'If one were to label as zhuanzhu only those phonograms which were
derived from existing characters to which phonetic elements were added,
and were to continue to label those phonograms which were derived from

There is an NPR talk show host who routinely refers to pairs of guests
jointly as "the both of you" (e.g., "welcome to the both of you").  I
was under the impression this was improper usage.  Advise please.
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