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(Jon sez:) 
I've received a number of emails telling me that I had misspelled "under
weigh" on the previous page, and I should have
instead written "under way." While I hate to disagree with our readers
(especially those who are kind enough to write email), that's not correct.
The phrase under weigh is perfectly
legitimate. No less an authority on the matter than the
mid-twentieth century novelist C.S. Forrester (who wrote the immensely
popular "Hornblower" seafaring novels as well as the book The African
Queen, which became a famous movie) also used the
spelling "weigh" in this case.
According to Merriam-Webster, "under weigh" is a phrase which came into being through folk etymology. However, since both cockroach and woodchuck are folk etymologies, I don't feel all that out of sorts using it. Bonus points, though, to the correspondent who was able to back up his claim that "under weigh" is illegitimate with a reference. However, in my book, when Merriam-Webster and the American Heritage Dictionary both say one thing, and one linguist says another thing...I tend to agree with the two dictionaries. One linguist gets outvoted by the entire linguistic staffs of two dictionaries... |
(Mark sez:) 
Qin has changed a lot since the last time we saw him. And I don't mean just that he's now a giant floating artichoke, either. Speaking of which, I do have an unfortunate habit of designing robot characters who not only don't have the ability to make an expression with their faces but often don't even have faces or indeed any moving parts whatsoever. Still, I don't think I'm doing so bad with 'em in the end.
In other news... um... oh, I guess that's it actually. Oh, right, almost forgot: happy Columbus Day to our readers in North America (one of my favorite continents.) OK, now that's definitely it. |
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