Don Cram

The spelling lacks the letter b, although the word derives from numb + skull. It is probably best used in self-deprecation, perhaps with a slight knocking on one’s own head.

Things that are no longer of any usefulness are obsolete; things of declining usefulness are obsolescent. I feel a bit of the latter as I approach 70 years of age. Then comes the former.

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s sonnet is named “Ozymandias” not “Oxymandias.” Shelley’s wife Mary wrote “Frankenstein.” Percy Bysshe (pronounced “Bish”) Shelley’s life is that of a candle, though not burning long burned exceedingly bright.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson is among the top ten most quoted writers in collections of famous sayings. He is often given as the source of, “Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die,” one of the most frequently misquoted sayings. What Tennyson actually wrote in Charge of the Light Brigade was, “Their’s not to reason why / Their’s but to do and die.”

Do and die, not or. And his apostrophes are wrong, but I doubt anyone could look him in the eye to tell him so.