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"Star-Telegram Columns"
November 10, 2008 Special to the Star-Telegram
This is like one of those cartoon caption contests.
You know, like there’s this completely frazzled fish lying on a psychiatrist’s couch, distraught eyes fixed to the ceiling. And the super-serious but disinterested shrink sits across the room, pretending to listen . . . as he [...]
August 9, 2008 Special to the Star-Telegram
One of the overlooked and under-reported aspects related to drilling in the Barnett Shale is the negative impact to our local linguistic environment.
We’re not talking particulate matter here. This is the worrisome increase in measurable propagandulate in the lower levels of what is technically referred [...]
May 10, 2008 Special to the Star-Telegram
Today is graduation day at Texas Christian University. I teach a class in general semantics there, and seven of my 46 students will walk across the stage. Congratulations to them!
Their last semester in college provided a variety of learning opportunities — and one notable missed [...]
February 2, 2008 Special to the Star-Telegram
The 2008 Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo concludes tomorrow. Since its inception in 1896, the show has grown to world-class proportions, attracting almost a million visitors each year and pumping an estimated $100 million into the Fort Worth-area economy.
The “Texas Fat Stock Show,” as [...]
November 12, 2005 Special to the Star-Telegram
Jim was my best friend in high school. He and I did everything that best friends do: We hung out, talked, double-dated and “made the drag” around town. We played together on the football field, in the band hall and at church.
During my sophomore year, [...]
August 27, 2005 Special to the Star-Telegram
Next week, I begin a new job. I’ve been invited by the Department of Communication Studies at Texas Christian University to teach a course in general semantics.
There’s a bit of irony in this.
In 1979, I was an Air Force lieutenant, navigating KC-135 air-refueling aircraft [...]
May 28, 2005 Special to the Star-Telegram
I grew up playing sports in the Texas Panhandle. On my bedroom wall, I had a plaque inscribed with a then-famous Grantland Rice saying: “For when the one great scorer comes to write against your name, he marks — not that you won or lost — [...]
February 26, 2005 Special to the Star-Telegram
Words have been in the news a lot lately.
Of course, one could make the argument that what we call “the news” is nothing but words. We hear and read about “the news” in the words that are handed to us by others.
Even when we view [...]
