Chicks and spikes
by Doug Smith
Roosters and chickens and fowl, oh my:
"Damien Thompson feeds pizza to roosters and chickens at the Dunbar Community Garden in Little Rock after collecting eggs Monday."
I'm glad both the roosters AND the chickens got fed. It'll make for better relations between them. That said, I have to admit I had no idea that roosters and chickens eat pizza. I wonder what kind they like best. And whether they get beer with it.
"After sliding with his spikes up toward Ed Reed's groin in the AFC Championship Game, Tom Brady was fined $10,000."
The last time I was in a football uniform the forward pass hadn't yet been invented. Apparently there've been other changes since then too, in either gear or terminology. In the old days, only baseball players wore spikes and went sliding spikes up into unfortunate infielders. Really mean ballplayers like Ty Cobb were said to sharpen their spikes before games. The things football players had on the bottoms of their shoes for traction were called "cleats." (You still hear TV football announcers refer to someone as having been "decleated" — that is, blocked or tackled so hard as to be knocked out of one's shoes.)
"From his humble roots in rural Lawrence County, Arkansas, he achieved the greatest of successes by foraging long and meaningful relationships throughout the state and beyond." I guess we've all foraged for relationships from time to time, but in this case, I think the writer intended to say that his subject had forged long and meaningful relationships.
For our continuing series Not Quite the Right Preposition, Michael Klossner submits "By removing the French presence from North America, the war deprived Native Americans from an ally they needed to combat Anglo-American settlers who were determined to expand westward." Deprived of is the norm. Another entry: "The Sporting News article said Haynes, Petrino and Smith said they didn't hold any grudges with Long or with Arkansas' administration and that they were treated well by the school." Grudges generally are held against, not with.
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