“To even the most casual observer, Claudia had implied that she thought Edgar was doing his best to keep the family business afloat but, as usual, Edgar inferred only criticism from her words - and, thus, another martial spat broke out.” Implication and inference are two completely different acts - as different as giving and receiving, or throwing and catching - and that very difference can have a powerful impact on a sentence. But your suggestion that “inferred” and “implied” are interchangeable is simply incorrect. and I have a few of my own (e.g., “the difference between”/”the difference among” rule, however valid, has outlived its usefulness). The New York Times style book runs a maddeningly close second.) You cite good examples of this transformation - e.g., the like/as rule, the will/shall rule, etc. Loren - I completely agree with you about the “ever-evolving, beautifully dynamic” elasticity of our language and you’ll never get an argument from me about the silliness of some existing “rules.” (I was trained under the Chicago Manual of Style, which is the reigning champ of constipated, antiquated, outright arrogant style, and I often bend those rules, as both a writer and editor, for better reader engagement. I also typically read the daily post after everyone’s moved on to the next day’s, so pls forgive my delay in this response to LMS’s 7:37 AM comment on Wednesday about grammar and such. I write and edit for a living, so I mostly just read here (throwing in my two cents would feel like a busman’s holiday to me). I’ve been a regular consumer of (and previous donor to) this site for a few years. I speak no German and know jack squat about opera and even I know it (exclusively) as "Das Rheingold." It's fair enough, it's just kinda pfft, which is my general feeling about the whole grid (PFFT being better than PTUI, but not a lot better). It was also super duper weird to see RHINEGOLD spelled like that. Could just as easily have been ADLER ( 18A: The "she" in the line "To Sherlock Holmes she is always THE woman"). Nothing about the IRENE clue suggests the answer will be a first name. Because of "Bar"-not-"Barre," I briefly bypassed DEGAS in favor of MANET (?!). I don't understand how 6D: "Dancers at the Bar" painter is an acceptable clue when the title of the painting is "Dancers at the Barre" most places I look (and in my memory). Anyway, thankfully, HORSR was manifestly wrong, and I corrected my "mistake." Other hiccups: no idea who that AMES guy is (and I have watched "Postman" many, many times- AMES isn't even one of the three principle actors) wanted CACAO BEAN before CACAO TREE needed many crosses to get NOT SPAM needed many crosses to get STRAY ( 1D: Drift). Is there an analogous verb where the doer gets -EE instead of -ER or -OR? TRUSTEE and TUTEE are both very different. I wrote in STANDER, because that is how English normally works. I almost got crushed by a word I don't really like or understand: STANDEE. BOOB fits the clue at 52-Down () as well if not better than BOOR, and while BOTOS may look ridiculous, so does ROTOS if you've never seen it before. I feel bad because it is decidedly *not* gettable from crosses. anyone who was like me before I stumbled on that "word" in a crossword a decade or so ago) ( 63A: Old newspaper photo sections). I feel bad for anyone who's never heard of ROTOS (i.e.
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