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1. 

   Grammarian

   November 11th, 2009 1:48 pm

   It’s champing, not chomping, at the bit. I expect more from educators.

2. 

   NYC Educator

   November 11th, 2009 2:18 pm

   Thank goodness we cleared that up. I was so shocked when I read that I almost dropped a whole handful of mashed potatoes and gravy.

3. 

   Aaron Pallas

   November 11th, 2009 2:24 pm

   Hey Grammarian,

   William Safire, the late lexicographer and columnist, disagreed with you. In a 1985 column, he wrote:

   “In Britain, champ is standard and chomp is dialect; in the United States, champ is less often used to describe chewing than chomp, a Southernism frequently employed by the cartoonist Al Capp in his ‘Li’l Abner’ strip. Thus, to spell it champing at the bit when most people would say chomping at the bit is to slavishly follow outdated dictionary preferences. The word is imitative, so it should imitate the sound that most people use to imitate loud chewing. Who would say ‘General Grant champed on his cigar’?”

4. 

   Michael M.

   November 11th, 2009 4:04 pm

   Not a day, er, pallasses… that I don’t learn something interesting on GS.
   Rome is burning, but at least we can debate fiddles vs. violins (not to mention whether either had been invented at the time).
   Re the first two bullets (as in bulletin, or perhaps hollow tip), it’s well past laugh-or-cry time.

5. 

   NYC Educator

   November 11th, 2009 7:16 pm

   Grammar is more complex than a lot of people think it is. There’s prescriptive grammar, which is whatever the grammar book says it is. Those of us who study and teach it are very aware of descriptive grammar, which is the way people actually use the language.

   If Safire had known only prescriptive grammar, few people would have read his columns, let alone remembered them.

   And fiddles and violins are just like language–it’s all about who’s playing them.

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