It? It Who? It What?

To what or of what does the "it" in this headline refer?

Jordan is not acting responsibly at the Temple Mount.

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Is There Such A Thing As A "Chassidic Winter"?

My brother-in-law sent me this, a sign at the Rest Stop on the Northway North - Clifffon Park and it comes with a Yiddish explanation:

which informs religiously-observant Jews, who read Yiddish, that is, that the water fountain cannot be used for the ritual washing of hands before eating bread and that the washing sink is in the Succah.

And since we're on to linguistists, sort of, here's another poster from a Hareidi neighborhood:

It publicizes a "one-time sale" of winter coats of "Chassidic Winter Coats" which I have encircled.

But those familiar with Hebrew grammar will discern that there's a funny error, I think.

The adjective "Chassidic" which is describing, I presume, the coat, is in singular form rather than plural.  In that form, it is really describing "Winter".

Is there such a thing as a "Chassidic Winter"?

Anyone have a more intelligent thought?


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JDate Wins

First, I was sent this picture (Kippah tip: RH) :

It purports to show a sign at a famous site - Amuka, the site of the burial tomb of Yonatan Ben-Uzziel - where singles go to beseech for a proper, and worthy, match.

It reads, in translation: "You came all the way to here for a bridegroom?  JDate is more simple" *.

Funny, and then I read this:

Debra Grace Fiterman and Alexander Ron Arbit were married Saturday evening in Minnetonka, Minn. Rabbi Harold J. Kravitz performed the ceremony at the Adath Jeshurun Congregation...

The couple met on their first date, St. Patrick’s Day 2009, though Mr. Arbit had the impression that they had met online about a week earlier.

Ms. Fiterman said that for the previous two years she had been looking for “the man of my dreams” on JDate without success. “I didn’t know what to do and I went to my friend Kara Frank.”

Ms. Frank and her husband had met on the Web site and Ms. Fiterman said she told her: “Well, you had luck. You write these guys on behalf of me.”

Ms. Frank agreed. “She clearly wasn’t cutting it on her own,” Ms. Frank said, adding that she was the one who found Mr. Arbit. “He looked cute. They both have very quirky personalities. He has a fun profile. I sent him a message.”

Her Cyrano de Bergerac gambit almost came undone when Mr. Arbit mentioned a local weatherman that he had discussed with Ms. Frank. “It’s not the channel I watch and I didn’t know what he was talking about,” Ms. Fiterman said...

So, if you play it properly and, with a bit of mazal, you'll get married - even without Amuka.


*RA thinks it should be: It’s easier with JDate.  What think you?

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A Question of Grammar

In a story about a metal detectionist searching for historical finds in the ground, the fellow

...said that on the day of his discovery he reworked a mantra that he regularly used for good luck. “I have this phrase that I say sometimes — ‘Spirits of yesterday, take me where the coins appear’ — but on that day I changed ‘coins’ to ‘gold.’ I don’t know why I said it that day, but I think somebody was listening.”

Should that have been "...take me where the gold appears"?

Or is the use of gold there as a collective noun?

Wow! Even The NYTimes Has "The Right Word"

Almost MyRightWord.

A column entitled The Right Word by Philip B. Corbett appeared in the New York Times in the After Deadline series which

examines questions of grammar, usage and style encountered by writers and editors of The Times. It is adapted from a weekly newsroom critique overseen by Philip B. Corbett, the deputy news editor who is also in charge of The Times’s style manual. The goal is not to chastise, but to point out recurring problems and suggest solutions.

An example:

Words to Watch: Cement vs. Concrete

I frequently point out words that we mix up because they sound the same: principle/principal, reign/rein, etc.

Other pairs of words don’t sound alike but trip us up because their meanings are related. Careful readers, including some in the cement industry, are quick to point it out when we confuse cement and concrete. We’ve done it so often over the years that the words earned their own entry in The Times’s stylebook:

cement. Use concrete instead to mean the material that forms blocks, walls and roads. One ingredient is cement, the binding agent that is mixed with water, sand and gravel.

or

More Words to Watch: Podium vs. Lectern

This pair of puzzlers also figures in the stylebook:

podium, lectern. A speaker stands on a podium and at or behind a lectern.

We frequently say “podium” when we mean “lectern” (the confusion never seems to go the other way). It may help to remember that a podiatrist takes care of your feet, and a podium is the thing under your feet. Lectern resembles “lecture” or “lector” and is where you put the notes to read during your lecture.

and

Tinkerbell, Digitally Altered

Here’s word mix-up I hadn’t noticed till a careful reader pointed it out: pixelated vs. pixilated.

According to our archive, on 42 occasions in the last year we used a word to describe an image that is or seems to be made up of pixels, as on a TV or computer screen (the word also can refer to an image that has been digitally blurred to be unrecognizable). Twenty-three times we spelled it “pixilated” and 19 times “pixelated.” So which is it?

It should be “pixelated” — note the “e” in the middle, reflecting the “e” in “pixel.”

The problem is, many dictionaries have not yet included this relatively new term (the online O.E.D. is an exception). But dictionaries do include an older, more obscure and entirely unrelated word — “pixilated,” with an “i” in the middle, derived not from “pixel” but from “pixie.” It means “eccentric, daft, whimsical,” suggesting someone under the influence of pixies.

Grammar Typo At the New York Times

"Circumstances could alter the Giants' approach Sunday. They will be playing indoors, and they are not certain of the condition of Brandon Jacobs, their leading rusher, whose had a magnetic resonance imaging test on his injured knee on Monday."

Here.

Shouldn't that have been "who has had" or "who’s had"?



And thanks to RA.

Grammar

My wife, who is an English teacher, and a good one, if I do say, which I do, is critical at times of my English usage, specifically my grammar, which can be atrocious as well as my vocabulary choices which can be too elitist. Not to mention my run-on sentences.

Anyway, here is something I found via Wonkette here which I just couldn't avoid.

...[the wedding of] former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles and Sue Ellen Wooldridge could have implications for the investigation into Griles’s ties to ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. They were married March 26, three days after Griles pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his relationship with Abramoff and a previous romantic partner.

If I am not mistaken, that italicized section could be problematic.

Does it mean that Abramoff was a previous romantic partner?

Of Griles or Wooldridge?

Or was the previous romantic partner linked with Abramoff?

This is getting dizzy.