“The Elephants of Style: A Trunkload of Tips on the Big Issues and Gray Areas of Contemporary American English”, by Bill Walsh

Pg. 194

HOMICIDE BOMBINGS Officials and advocates trying to shift the focus from suicide bombers to their victims coined this term, and they can have it. It’s really more a play on words than a serious attempt at a better description. Doesn’t bomber already imply homicidal intent? People who kill themselves by taking pills or firing a gun are called suicides, not suicide pill-takers or suicide gunmen. And bombers of Timonthy McVeigh’s ilk are simply called bombers; the homicide is understood. Suicide bombings are called suicide bombings to set them apart from McVeigh-style bombings; if you think that somehow glorifies the bomber, I think you’re nuts.

“Lapsing Into a Comma: A Curmudgeon’s Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print–and How to Avoid Them”, by Bill Walsh

Pg. 155

INTO, ONTO The distinctions between into and in to–and between onto and on to–are quite confusing, as the definition of the one-word forumations is the two-word formulations. The important thing to keep in mind is that idioms ending in in and on should be preserved. So it’s logging on to the Internet, not logging onto. And the absurdity of The suspect turned himself into police should be readily apparent.

“Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life”, by Barbara Kingsolver, with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver

Pg. 17

People hold to their food customs because of the positives: comfort, nourishment, heavenly aromas. A sturdy food tradition even calls to outsiders; plenty of red-blooded Americans will happily eat Italian, French, Thai, Chinese, you name it. But try the reverse: hand the Atkins menu to a French person, and run for your life.

Will North Americans ever have a food culture to call our own? Can we find or make up a set of rituals, recipes, ethics, and buying habits that will let us love our food and eat it too? Some signs point to “yes.” Better food–more local, more healthy, more sensible–is a powerful new topic of the American conversation. It reaches from the epicurean quarters of Slow Food convivia to the matter-of-fact Surgeon General’s Office; from Farm Aid concerts to school lunch programs. From the rural routes to the inner cities, we are staring at our plates and wondering where that’s been. For the first time since our nation’s food was ubiquitously local, the point of origin now matters again to some consumers. We’re increasingly wary of an industry that puts stuff in our dinner we can’t identify as animal, vegetable, mineral, or what. The halcyon postwar promise of “better living through chemistry” has fallen from grace. “No additives” is now often considered a plus rather than the minus that, technically, it is.