Yesterday we talked to seventh-grader Tony Incorvati of Canton Country Day School, who has competed in the Scripps National Spelling Bee for the last two years and is going for a three-peat. We asked Tony to share some of his favorite words. And try Tony's Community Spelling Bee for some more tough words!  Continue reading...

These memories of Manhattan in the summer of 1956 employ a number of words that appear in my book "More Words That Make a Difference," with illustrative sentences from the Atlantic Monthly.  Continue reading...

As the American Dialect Society gears up to vote for Word of the Year, the City Dictionary website has announced its own selection of "words with local flavor."  Continue reading...

These scenes from my life in Boston — when my wife Carol and I lived there many years ago and during our recent work there on "More Words That Make a Difference" — employ a number of words that appear in that book, with illustrative sentences from the Atlantic Monthly.  Continue reading...

Yesterday we talked to sixth-grader Nicholas Rushlow, who finished 17th in the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee. At his home in Pickerington, Ohio, Nicholas maintains an impressive "word wall," festooned with many of the fascinating words he has learned while practicing for spelling bees. We asked Nicholas to share some of his favorites. And he has also created a Community Spelling Bee for us with even more "killer" words!  Continue reading...

Once again award-winning writer and educator Bob Greenman takes us on a journey through words selected from More Words That Make a Difference, a delightful book illustrating word usage with passages from the Atlantic Monthly. Here Bob muses on the start of another school year, with an ardor that is far from noncommittal.  Continue reading...

Have you ever tasted something that was so wonderful that experiencing it for the first time transported you rapturously to another plane, the food itself rising to the level of the divine, the perfect essence of what that food was supposed to be?  Continue reading...