Joseph Bottum

A good concordance will help with references to bees in the Church Fathers, but it’s hard to work on the topic of bees without mentioning the Reverend Jonathan Swift, who (in the 1704 Battle of the Books ) gave the classic metaphorical use, the phrasing of which survives in English to this . . . . Continue Reading »

The Anglican bishop of Hereford has been fined £47,345 and ordered to undergo “equal opportunities training” for failing to hire an active homosexual who applied for a position working with young people in the diocese. Perhaps, following the advice of his archbishop , he . . . . Continue Reading »

“A gift cannot so easily be severed from its giver,” writes Gilbert Meilaender, responding to the news that the prime minister of Great Britain had called for a system in which organs would simply be taken for transplant from cadavers, with their consent presumed. “When an organ is . . . . Continue Reading »

A usage question for all you legal types. In an article about a misused government informant, I came across this line: “prosecutors are asking a federal judge to dismiss charges including conspiracy and cocaine trafficking against most of the defendants, even some who pleaded guilty.” . . . . Continue Reading »

So, if you look up higher on this page, you’ll see that First Things is beginning its search for next year’s Junior Fellows .Want to apply? These are one- or two-year internships for young writers and scholars interested in religion and public life. The positions offer the opportunity to . . . . Continue Reading »

So, last night, I took my daughter to her first live college basketball game— Georgetown vs. St. John’s , at Madison Square Garden. She told me it was the best game she’d ever seen, which is a little bit sad—I’m such a bad father!—because the playing was . . . . Continue Reading »

As Rudy Giuliani goes gentle into that good night , it’s worth remembering what he was taken to represent, once upon a time. Or, at least, what Frank Rich told us he represented in the October 28, 2007, issue of the New York Times . At that moment, Giuliani was on the top of all the polls, . . . . Continue Reading »

Our friend William Baer writes to remind us that it’s that time of year again: The St. Robert Southwell Institute is taking applications for this summer’s installment of its annual creative writing workshop. This year, it’s from June 1 to June 11 at the Carmel Retreat House in . . . . Continue Reading »

Thanks to our emailers for all the help with a name for words formed from roots in different languages. “Hybrid word” was a common suggestion, though it seems more a description than a name. Macaronic turns out to be the word I was trying to come up with, though it seems technically to . . . . Continue Reading »

There’s a name that curmudgeonly grammarians give to words derived from more than one language—and for the life of me, I can’t think of it. Television is a famous example, a Greek prefix on a Latin stem. Uber-theocon is another, less-famous example, a epithet someone or other flung . . . . Continue Reading »