Speaking of the constantly, publicly self-flagellating New York Times, now they're just co-opting our ragging on them. "After Deadline," a column on one of their 600 blogs, has an item today on phrases the Times overuses and grammatical mistakes they make far too often. It's like four nice little Gawker posts, but they're running them for some reason. What are the Times' various crimes against language? Misusing "Like." It's not a conjunction, people! Well, it is in casual English, but not according to the stylebook. Please use "as" or "the way." "Best" is the superlative form of "well." In other words, there is not really such a thing as "most well-known." They make this mistake all the time. "Meltdown" Meltdown! The easiest way for the Times to reference the current fiscal crisis is to call it a "meltdown," as they have 400 times this year. Finally, most egregiously, Tale of Two Cities references must be stopped. The Grey Lady published eight headlines involving the "Tale of Two..." construction last year, and one this year. This does not even take into account the many "Best of __, worst of ___" references. Editors, there are far, far better Dickens works to constantly allude to. Isn't Hard Times more appropriate these days? Still, we're pissed that someone in-house picked this up before we could. Stop taking the fun out of mocking you, New York Times!