The perfect Christmas gift for a sportscaster, as all fans of sports clichés know, is a scoreless tie.

I want my questions answered by an alert and experienced politician, prepared to be grilled and quoted -- not my hand held by an old smoothie.

At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.

Dangling punch lines to forgotten stories remain in the language like the smile of the Cheshire cat.

On the analogy of 'Dictionary Johnson,' we call Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the just-published Yale Book of Quotations (well worth the $50 price), 'Quotationeer Shapiro.' Shapiro does original research, earning his 1,067-page volume a place on the quotation shelf next to Bartlett's and Oxford's.

Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.

Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks.