Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo*
Wyoming bison [that] Montana bison bully [in turn] bully Idaho bison.
Category Archives: Grammar
The Case for Anilingus in The B52’s “Roam”
Jim DeRogatis is pop-music critic at the Chicago Sun-Times. He’s written several rock ‘n’ roll books, and is a host of Sound Opinions.
In an article titled “Songs About Sex,” a compilation of 40 such songs, DeRogatis lists “Roam” from the B52’s. He says, “…and only these New Wave art-popsters could pen one about analingus.”
This isn’t the first time DeRogatis has made this claim. In a June 19, 2008 article regarding Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III, he says, “…some of the greatest hits in pop history have paid subtly veiled homage to oral sex, ‘Please Please Me,’ ‘Sugar, Sugar’ and the B-52s’ ‘Roam’ among them.”*
Upon reading this for the first time, I loudly exclaimed, “Anal-oral sexual contact in a catchy pop song? I don’t freakin’ believe it!” The elderly woman sitting next to me at the bus stop made a strangled gurgling sound and nearly fainted. Continue reading The Case for Anilingus in The B52’s “Roam”
I use both spellings of the word here and I don’t think I can justify correcting “analingus.” A Google search for both terms favors the “analingus” spelling, roughly 3,000,000 to 1,000,000. Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, and Random House dictionaries all favor the “anilingus” spelling.*
“Alright” and “All right”
“Of course the expression consists of two separate words, all right; there is no compound. And yet educated persons sometimes catch themselves writing alright, after the fashion of already.”
–Editor, Good literature: a literary eclectic weekly: Volume 3, p. 281, 1882
“Sometimes she had fits of home-sickness or loneliness which depressed her, but as she used to say, on the whole she got on alright.”
–Francis Adams, “Dorothy,” from, The Centennial Magazine: an Australian Monthly, Volume 2, p. 580, 1889 Continue reading “Alright” and “All right”