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On the podcast Dear Hank & John, listeners write in to have questions answered with dubious advice, people had been making clever signoffs in lieu of a simple “Sincerely,” and one listener named Bree signed off with not being able to come up with a clever one, as their sign-off.

Later, on episode 104, in response to this person, another listener named Bree wrote in with a suggestion that all people named Bree do, in fact, have a great sign-off, which is:

“Floats like a butterfly, stings like a,
Bree.”

From then on, it became a thing to have a name-specific sign-off. This is a list of them. This is also a list in progress; if you have any additions or spelling corrections, please comment or email me at ablestmage@gmail.com =)

Format:
Episode Number – Sign off, (Name)

104 – Floats like a butterfly, stings like a, (Bree)
106 – Showers and the cruelest month, (April)
106 – Sweet, (Caroline)
106 – Curiosity hasn’t killed me yet, (Kat)
106 – Of (Tyson) Men,
106 – Eat, Drink, and Be, (Mary)
106 – The Crown, (Joules)
106 – With love or malice, this one’s from, (Alice)
107 – Not from Wyoming, (Cheyenne)
111 – Amazing, (Grace)
111 – You have a great persa, (Natalie)
111 – I ran away with all of Bruno Mars’ money, (Natalie)
112 – It’s not rainy; it’s not snowy; it’s, (Hailey)
112 – No I can’t, (Kenya)
112 – I’m so fine I may blow your mind, (Mickey)
113 – Step over the door, (Matt)
115 – Wake me up before you, (Jojo)
116 – Greetings from the upside down, Demi(Morgan)
117 – Babbling, (Brooke)
122 – Candy is dandy, but I’ll always be quicker, (Ricker)
123 – Kit, (Kat)
126 – Rage against the (Haneen)
129 – Sealed with a (Chris)
130 – Not February, (April)
130 – Bun-(Anna)
130 – God Bless You Please (Mrs. Robinson)
133 – Maya hoo, Maya hee, Maya-haa, (Maya), ha ha
136 – Learning about the brain, (Sarah)-bellum
137 – We’re all gonna die, (-ana; (Diana))
138 – Not too Shh(Abby)
138 – Que Sera (Sara)
138 – Like Wonderland, (Alice)
139 – Feeling Starry, (Ari)
139 – Tear down this wall, (Joshua)
139 – The wind, (Dustin)

I am slowly adding additional mentions I hear when listening to the pod, so please add any additional sign-offs you hear from the pod and please include which episode number and send to ablestmage@gmail.com =)

Making the rounds lately is the prospect that Merriam-Webster has “changed” the entry for “assault rifle” in context with the Parkland shooting, or in response to a politically-motivated push to alter how we use words. However, this possibly very misleading.

RE: Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary Changes Definition Of ‘Assault Rifle’ After Parkland Shooting

RE: Merriam-Webster changes ‘assault rifle’ in dictionary after school shooting

Merriam-Webster does appear to have augmented the entry for “assault rifle” but the problem lies mostly in the understanding of what a dictionary entry is designed for.

A dictionary describes usage. Think of a newspaper sports page that lists which teams scored how many points in recent games — are those reports “defining” (or prescribing) how many points those teams are allowed to score? No, they are just observing the outcome of those games, and reflecting that data on the page.

Likewise, a dictionary is not prescribing meaning, or designating official meaning of words — it is describing statistics about how words are observed to be used. A dictionary also does not comment on the truthfulness that usage; a dictionary simply observes how the general public uses words, and then ranks the way they use words starting with the most-commonly observed way. That’s the whole reason they’re even listed in order of 1-2-3 to begin with. The first meaning isn’t more correct, it’s simply more popularly used that way.




This same controversy arose in ~2008 when M-W and others like it updated the entry for marriage to include usage to refer to unions other than strictly male-female pairs, and it was then also argued that the dictionary was bowing to political pressure, or trying to “change the definition of marriage” as if it announced mandates for official correctness — but it doesn’t do that to begin with. It observes how the general public uses words, and reflects that usage, statistically. The idea that “the dictionary” provides official meanings, or correctness/incorrectness of meanings, simply isn’t true.

Your favorite word board game may use “a dictionary” to officiate which words are playable in the context of the game, but this ain’t Scrabble, honey.

If you’re interested to learn more about the concepts of descriptive and prescriptive linguistics (or about how dictionaries aren’t the officiators of English), consider reading, “All English Grammar Questions Answered At Once: Is it this way, or that way?” for a few citations and expansion on concepts mentioned above.