Tag: English-language
Lauren Groff’s Muse Is Unlike Any Other
At some point during the winter of 1609–10, in Jamestown, Virginia, the starving English settlers are said to have begun eating one another. Meanwhile, back in London, the King James Version of the Bible, arguably the greatest work of prose in the English language, was receiving its final edits; it went to the printer the following year. Lauren Groff’s haunting new novel, The Vaster Wilds, doesn’t mention the King James Bible by name, or that its completion coincided with
The Objectively Objectionable Grammatical Pet Peeve
Bad Things remained rare in the early decades of the twentieth century. Then they began to proliferate, and now I see them everywhere. One reason may be that writers imitate other writers, both consciously and unconsciously, and imitation eventually leads to stylistic convergence. Whatever the explanation, people nowadays seem more likely than ever to begin sentences with appositives or similarly irritating clauses or phrases—as in this triple punch, from the Washington Post (which has other issues, too):
Europe’s Reckoning on Ukraine Is Yet to Come
In addition to fear and horror, the war in Ukraine during its first weeks awakened a strange feeling of self-confidence in Europe. “Solidarity with Ukraine makes democracy cool again,” the Serbian activist Srdja Popovic told the French newspaper Liberation on March 23. Vladimir Putin, through his rhetoric, indiscriminate bombing, and civilian massacres, has taken on a role much bigger than that of an old-fashioned tyrant: that of an openly fascist stateman. At last, after decades of false alarms, the first
The Sisterhood Between Single Mothers
Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.
This week she talks with two women who forged a friendship in crisis. When Sarah’s husband left her for another woman—while she was pregnant—she turned to her colleague Theresa, who was raising a daughter alone. They became so close that when Theresa chose to have a second child, Sarah was