Welcome to Part II! Thank you for coming back to this long list of people who make us all look a little bad at what we strive to be/do.
Without further ado, let’s get started!
NOTE: I may have missed a few, but, as far as I know, this is the complete list—again, in many parts—of every person, book, song, and more mentioned by Hale.
- Richard Lederer (Anguished English)
- William Safire (“On Language” column in the New York Times)
- Tom Stoppard (“Arcadia”)
- Patricia O’Connor (Woe is I)
- Peggy Noonan (What I Saw at the Revolution)
- Cosmopolis (movie)
- Bo Diddley (“Who Do You Love”)
- Paul Simon (“Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”)
- Matthew Zapruder (“April Snow” poem)
- Horace (Roman poet)
- Francis Bacon
- The Bible
- M.F.K. Fisher (American food writer)
- Elsa Schiaparelli (fashion designer)
- Erma Bombeck
- Kenneth Koch (“Permanently” poem)
- Geoffrey Nunberg (American linguist)
- Bruce Olds (novelist)
- Laura Hillenbrand (Seabiscuit)
- Roger Angell (The New Yorker journalist, “In the Fire”)
- William Finnegan (“The Sporting Scene: Playing Doc’s Games”)
- Homer’s The Odyssey

- Dr. Seuss’s Hop on Pop
- Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (aka Q. Although, Cornish writer)
- Arnold Zwicky (linguist)
- Jan Freeman (Active Resistance: What We Get Wrong About the Passive Voice)
- Language Log (blog)
- Geoff Pullum (“Confusion Over Avoiding the Passive“)
- Germaine Greer (“The Female Eunuch”)
- Richard Rapaport (“The Playground of Big Science”)
- Garner’s Modern American Usage
- Jamaica Kincaid (“Girl”)
- James Weldon Johnson (“Lift Every Voice and Sing”)
- Blind Gary Davis (“Lord I Fell Just Like Goin’ On”)
- Elizabeth Cotton (“Mama, Nobody’s Here but the Baby”)
- Howlin’ Wolf (“Moanin’ at Midnight”)
- George Strait (“All My Exes Live in Texas”)
- Memphis Minnie – “If You See My Rooster (Please Run Him Home)”
- Robert Johnson (“I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom”)
- Lee Hazlewood (“These Boots Are Made For Walkin'”)
- Led Zeppelin (“The Song Remains the Same”)
- The Rolling Stones (“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”)
- The Seeds (“Can’t Seem to Make You Mine”)
Happy Reading and Listening!
Stay tuned for Part III