Warren Clements was for many years a member of The Globe and Mail's editorial board and, for a five-year stretch, editor of the newspaper's op-ed page. He currently writes weekly columns on DVDs and Word Play, and used to write and draw a comic strip called Nestlings, about birds and worms. He edited a weekly humour competition called The Challenge, and is co-author (with J.A. McFarlane) of The Globe and Mail Style Book, available to the public through McClelland & Stewart. Among his other books are two Nestlings collections (First Flight, Return Flight), a collection of humorous pieces he and Alastair Lawrie wrote for The Globe (Thank Goodness It's Saturday) and two collections of entries to The Challenge (The Globe Challenge, The Full Mountie). He lives in Toronto with his wife, Alexandra.
Shrank. Stank. Sprang. It’s called the past tense, people
In the spirit of sharing, we’ve opened the mailbag for some choice word usages that have driven readers round the bend
Anglo-Saxons and hand-saex
Relax, it’s not what you think – it’s a hand knife, and the word comes from Old German roots
Can Pinterest be Pinteresque?
The terms collide and almost produce an ‘eggcorn’
A medley, not a melee, of word origins
The two have nothing to do with one another
Where do curmudgeons come from? Best to double-check
This is a week for discursiveness, from vanity plates to double-checking
The difference a vowel can make
He says groin, she says groyne, and what they’re both talking about is not a body part but a structure to protect the seashore from erosion
A tip: After a tipple, you could get tipsy and tip over
With this word, the most common definition is just the tip of the iceberg
Get in your two cents worth while the penny's still around
The Royal Canadian Mint will no longer produce the one-cent coin and, as of this fall, will no longer distribute those it has
The problem with hoods
Whether you’re talking about neighbourhood, brotherhood, hooded sweatshirts or hoodwinking someone, the word has complicated and multiple meanings
Does a tycoon really ‘earn’ his millions?
Does a tycoon really ‘earn’ his millions? Depends on how you define the term
