For his 1992 palindrome dictionary From A to ZOtamorf, Stephen J. Chism set out to gather all the reversible expressions in English that had been published up to that point. He divides them sensibly into single words; phrases and sentences; poems; and personal and place names — but the last chapter is titled FOR SOME REASON CHEESE:

A duo Gouda
Ate Feta?
Cheese not dairy. Myriad tone? See H.C.
Cheese? See H.C. …
Disk Colby block, Sid.
Edam Hannah made
He ate feta, eh?
He made lives evil. Edam, eh?
Lay block Colby, Al.
No Brie, Irbon?
No Romano on a moron …
Not Lit, Stilton?
Note Swiss: “I.W. Seton”
Why block Colby, H.W.?

“I don’t propose to explain it,” he writes. “Cheese is as unlikely as it is likely; a seemingly ordinary food product. Why, then, do we find it treated more thoroughly in palindromes than any other substance?”

In The King’s English (1997), Kingsley Amis cites an old joke that illustrates the confusing distinction between shall and will:

A swimmer in difficulties was heard to shout, ‘I will drown and nobody shall save me.’ At an inquest on the unfortunate fellow, English jurors wanted a verdict of suicide, Scottish jurors a verdict of death by misadventure, and MacTavish pressed for a rider or footnote rebuking witnesses for making no effort to rescue the victim.

Under the old rule, I shall indicated a prediction and I will denoted a promise or threat. Confusingly, in the second and third persons these meanings were reversed, so that you/she will indicated simple futurity and you/she shall denoted an intention or command. Still more confusingly, old-fashioned speakers of Scottish English reversed this whole understanding of the matter. So while the English jurors thought the swimmer was saying, “It is my intention to drown, and it is my express desire that nobody try to save me,” the Scots took him to say, “I am going to drown and it seems that nobody is going to save me.”

All this has only grown more confused with the popularity of contractions such as I’ll and you’ll, and Americans have generally dispensed with shall and use will for everything. Of the joke, Amis writes, “Nobody tells that one today.”

ampullosity
n. pretentious use of language

Though much hath been written and said in order to render the Lexiphantic style ridiculous, yet it is surprising to see how it keeps its ground among circles of a certain kind, where even good sense is by no means a stranger: — let the following card witness, which was really sent by a gentleman to a lady, who had asked his company to tea and supper: — ‘Mr. F—-‘s compliments to Miss S—-, at your post meridian computation, be not fascinated with the ardescence of my bibulating in co, since anterior motives stimulate me to itinerate in a transverse direction. But after the diurnal operosity hath increased the delectability of Vesper, perhaps I may saturate a wonted appetite, by the contuding that petacious root, so nice an esculent, if humidated by butter, joined to mellifluous conviviality.’ — It was read twice before the lady found out that the writer excused himself from coming to tea, but would probably eat a roasted potatoe with her at night.

— Geoffry Gambado, New Oddest of All Oddities, for 1813

Devised by English orthographer Christopher Upward, Cut Spelling seeks to reform English by eliminating and substituting letters to better match the spoken word:

Wen readrs first se Cut Spelng, as in this sentnce, they ofn hesitate slytly, but then quikly becom acustmd to th shortnd words and soon find text in Cut Spelng as esy to read as traditional orthografy, but it is th riter ho realy apreciates th advantajs of Cut Spelng, as many of th most trublsm uncertntis hav been elimnated.

Words in this scheme are 8 to 15 percent shorter than their standard spellings, and the rules are more systematic, arguably making them easier to learn for both newcomers and established readers. The plan was promoted for a time by the Simplified Spelling Society but, like so many other reform proposals, never achieved wide acceptance.

In the March 1992 newsletter of Australia’s Society of Editors, John Bangsund offered a rule that he called Muphry’s Law:

(a) if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written;
(b) if an author thanks you in a book for your editing or proofreading, there will be mistakes in the book;
(c) the stronger the sentiment expressed in (a) and (b), the greater the fault;
(d) any book devoted to editing or style will be internally inconsistent.

In November 2003, the Canberra Editor noted, “Muphry’s Law also dictates that, if a mistake is as plain as the nose on your face, everyone can see it but you. Your readers will always notice errors in a title, in headings, in the first paragraph of anything, and in the top lines of a new page. These are the very places where authors, editors and proofreaders are most likely to make mistakes.”

Earlier, editor Joseph A. Umhoefer had observed that “Articles on writing are themselves badly written.” A correspondent wrote that Umhoefer “was probably the first to phrase it so publicly; however, many others must have thought of it long ago.”