The Atlantic, April 2013 (I)

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(1) Letters to Editor:

The Conversation; Responses and reverberations.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magaz ... onversation/309272/

My comment: I introduced the articles at the time they were published.

choi

(2) Megan Garber, For Whom the Bell Tolls; The inexorable decline of America's least favorable pronoun
http://www.theatlantic.com/magaz ... -bell-tolls/309266/
(the gradual demise of "whom")

Note:
(a) twerp (n; of unknown origin; late 19th century):
"informal  a silly or annoying person"
Oxford dictionaries, undated.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/twerp

(b) The article argues, "As a result, Dear so-and-so gives way to Hi so-and-so or even Hey so-and-so. Infinitives split, wantonly. Prepositions end sentences."
(i) "Hi" and "Hey" are identical and interchangeable.
(ii) For "infinitives split," see split infinitive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive
(section 1.4 Types)
(iii) preposition and postposition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preposition_and_postposition
(Students are commonly taught that prepositions cannot end a sentence[citation needed], although there is no rule prohibiting that use.[6][7])

(c) The Article mentions "[w]hat the Indiana University linguist Susan Herring refers to as 'e-grammar.'"

Susan C Herring, Professor of Information Science, Indiana University, undated
http://ils.indiana.edu/faculty/herring/
(Other Recent Publications (Selected):
Herring, S C (2012). Grammar and electronic communication. In C Chapelle (Ed), Encyclopedia of applied linguistics. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Preprint: http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/e-grammar.pdf
)
(d) The article says: "Jack Lynch writes in his book lexicographer's Dilemma."
(i) lexicographer (n; Late Greek lexikographos, from lexikon + Greek -graphos writer, from graphein to write)
"an author or editor of a dictionary"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lexicographer
(ii) lexicon

choi

(3) Lindsay Abrams, The Queen Bee's Guide to Parenting.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magaz ... o-parenting/309257/

My comment:
(a) Please at least read items 1 and 3.
(b) Reference 1 is

Kim et al, Does ‘Tiger Parenting’ Exist?  Asian American Journal of Psychology, 2012
, whose abstract, unfortunately, the publisher does not allow the public to view.
(c) Brand B and Chapuisat M, Born to Be Bee, Fed to Be Worker? The caste system of a primitively eusocial insect.
(d) Compare
(I) bee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee

section 3 Eusocial and semisocial bees:  "There are many more species of primitively eusocial bees than highly eusocial bees, but they have rarely been studied. The biology of most such species is almost completely unknown. The vast majority are in the family Halictidae, or 'sweat bees.' Colonies are typically small, with a dozen or fewer workers, on average. The only physical difference between queens and workers is average size, if they differ at all. Most species have a single season colony cycle, even in the tropics, and only mated females (future queens, or 'gynes') hibernate (called diapause)."
(ii) honey bee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_bee
(Honey bees (or honeybees) are a subset of bees in the genus Apis, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of perennial, colonial nests out of wax; section 4.3 Queens)

(e) Item 6 talks about "pigtail macaque."
(i) pig-tailed macaque
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig-tailed_macaque
(ii) Southern pig-tailed macaque
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_pig-tailed_macaque
, whose section 2 Physical description explains it is its tail, not hair, that earns the name.

(f) Item 8 alludes to "orange-winged parrot."

Orange-winged Amazon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange-winged_Amazon
(also known locally as Orange-winged Parrot)

choi

(4) Metadata.

"Percentage of US couples,in a 2010 survey, who spent more than $25,000 on their wedding: 32

"Percentage of young adultswho report delaying marriagebecause of economy: 20

"Percentage of men and women, respectively, who say they would marry for money: 50, 67

"Source: The Knot.com & Weddingcahnnel.com 2012 Real Weddings Study; Pew Research Center; Prince & Associates via Wall Street Journal

Note:
(a) I can not find the URL for this column, so I reproduce its text. 
(b)
(i) metadata (n; First Known Use 1983):
"data that provides information about other data"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metadata
(ii) metadata
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata
(c) Robert Frank, Marrying for Love ... of Money; Many Americans Say They'd Take the Cash; 'I'm a Little Shocked.'  Wall Street Journal, Dec 14, 2007.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119760031991928727.html

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(5) Jordan Weissmann, Our Monopoly Economy.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magaz ... he-chartist/309271/

My comment:
(a) It is downright wrong to call this "monopoly." I is not even oligopoly. Competition in modern business world is so intense, that Microsoft, which the clinton administration prosecuted for anti-trust conduct but the Bush administration dropped it due to different philosophical views, is threatened by a whole hosts of new media: Google and Facebook, to name a few.
(b) The article makes the shocking statement: "Walmart sells 57% of American's groceries." There are few Walmart stores in Massachusetts, which is strongly pro-union and unions oppose Walmart.
(i) How Wal-Mart Became A Grocery Giant In The US. Trefis, Jan 18, 2013
http://www.trefis.com/stock/wmt/ ... -the-u-s/2013-01-18
("Wal-Mart’s share in the US grocery market has increased four folds since the launch of its first Neighborhood Market in 1998. Since data on the overall size of the grocery market in the US is not available, we have estimated this figure using consumer spending data on food products provided by the Bureau Of Economic Analysis. Then using WMT’s reported grocery sales we estimated WMT’s share of the market in the US. According this calculation, Wal-Mart’s share was less than 7% back in 2002 and has increased to about 15% in 2007 and touched 18% in 2011")
(ii) Meredith Lepore, Here's How Walmart Became The #1 Grocery Store In The Country. Business INsider, Feb 11, 2011
http://www.businessinsider.com/w ... nt-sell-groceries-1
("It [Walmart] had $188.3 billion in sales in its 3,599 supermarket stores. Kroger came in second with $76.2 billion followed by Safeway with $41 billion")