The New Oxford American Dictionary's publishers have chosen the 2009 word of the year.

We used to have a saying on the copy desk: Don't follow the stylebook out the window. In other words, common sense should govern which style rules you enforce.

The Associated Press Stylebook is the guide we use for deciding how to handle some usage matters. We follow it -- mostly. Some of us love it, and some of us hate it. Some of us see it as a blunt instrument we can use to subdue crazed writers. And some folks see it as a rich source for parody. Those are the people behind the Fake AP Stylebook on Twitter. Warning: They use words that are decidedly not in the AP Stylebook but which can be heard from time to time in certain workplaces.

We work very fast these days with diminished resources, and sometimes my word nerd proclivities have to wait until I am off deadline. Lucky for me, I have shelves filled with dictionaries and usage books at home. I can indulge my need to know more about English.

I wrote a post a few years ago about the language of death. As a regular reader of the paid obituaries in our newspaper, I was fascinated with the many ways that the families and funeral homes found to refer to death. I concluded that in these short summations of a person's life, the terms such as "called home," "went to his (or her) heavenly reward" and "passed away" could be comforting to the loved ones of the person who died.

The New York Times report of a well-known British conductor's assisted suicide alongside his wife has a passage that illustrates a rare and tricky challenge.

Misplaced and dangling modifiers can sneak in when writers and editors aren't paying attention. A couple of readers found such constructions in recent N&O pieces, and I found a couple in one article I was reading on another Web site. Those examples provide the makings for this post.

A slogan I've seen from time to time comes to mind today: Christians aren't perfect -- just forgiven. Sometimes I'd like to post this slogan: Grammar advisers aren't perfect -- just trying very hard.

Reform has been in the news, both foreign and domestic.

The Associated Press has updated its widely used stylebook for 2009. It has at least a couple of entries that will irritate those who don't care for turning nouns into verbs.

A reader objects to loose usage on bring and take.