We’d intended to walk to a coffee shop near my residence to enjoy bonbons with our beverages. Unfortunately, the morning rain altered our plans. Instead, we chose to settle into two Queen Anne chairs by a picture window in the lobby of the building where I live, our hot drinks fresh

Working with an editor on my memoir taught me to appreciate how rapidly language changes. Like floodwaters, it flows, alters course and refuses to be controlled. The French have tried to apply rules to their native tongue, hoping to preserve its purity, but snippets of English breach