http://www.visualthesaurus.com?ad=rss The Visual Thesaurus Online Edition is a magazine available to Visual Thesaurus Subscribers about language, writing, and the creative process. The Visual Thesaurus is an online thesaurus and dictionary of over 145,000 words that you explore using an interactive map. Copyright 2012, Thinkmap Inc. All Rights Reserved. en Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/images/common/logo_on_white.gif http://www.visualthesaurus.com?ad=rss Word of the Day http://www.visualthesaurus.com?word=fiat money&utm_source=rss You might think that this precious commodity is only for those saving to buy an Italian import. But look in your wallet: you may be carrying! Fiat money is money that has value based only on the authority of a government. Most modern currencies consist of fiat money. The first term in fiat money is actually a Latin, not an Italian import; it means "let it be done." Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wd/2117 Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3120?utm_source=rss With the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens approaching (get your party hats ready for February 7th!), it's a good time to gauge the enormous impact he had on the English language. By many accounts he was the most widely read author of the Victorian era, and no writer since has held a candle to him in terms of popularity, prolificness, and influence in spreading new forms of the language — both highbrow and lowbrow. Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3120 Evasive Maneuvers http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/evasive/3119?utm_source=rss Before pushing on with this month's batch of old and new euphemisms, I'd feel remiss if I didn't give my take on job creator, which the American Dialect Society voted 2011's Most Euphemistic term of the year. Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/evasive/3119 Language Lounge http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/3117?utm_source=rss In this month's Language Lounge, we explore one of the most curious corners of contemporary consumer culture: the litany of side effects in commercials for prescription drugs, in which sometimes horrifying conditions are narrated over pleasing images. Warning: May cause unsettling contemplation. Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/3117 Behind the Dictionary http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/dictionary/3116?utm_source=rss Back in December, a small study by researchers at Long Island University got a lot of news play. Maybe you heard about it. It was about the supposed recent increase in young American women's use of vocal fry — the lowest vocal register, the one with a creaky quality to it. Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/dictionary/3116 Teachers at Work http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3114?utm_source=rss Before I began teaching, I had assumed that the many stories I had heard about how students don't like poetry were just myths. After all, I liked (some) poetry, so why wouldn't my students like (some) poetry? But unlike nearly every other myth I've dismissed in my time as a teacher, the one about poetry proved to be true: Nothing makes my students whine more than being handed a poem. Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3114 Word Count http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3110?utm_source=rss We're happy to feature another installment of James Harbeck's Word Tasting Notes, this time on geoduck: "This word, at first sight, seems to be a paradoxical mix: geo says 'earth' to us, and duck says 'waterfowl.' Put them together and you have something that is, as the saying goes, neither fish nor fowl." Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3110 Word Count http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3109?utm_source=rss We welcome back Merrill Perlman, who writes the "Language Corner" column for Columbia Journalism Review. Here she looks at the way that the "drink/drank/drunk" verb paradigm is changing, and advises you how to derive "drunk" (but please, don't drive drunk). Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3109 Word Count http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3108?utm_source=rss While the semicolon has long been a favorite topic of discussion at grammarian cocktail parties, the fact that this intermediate piece of punctuation has leapt from its place in linguistics to make a cameo appearance in not one, but two Broadway shows, is surely a sign that things are currently very right, and very write, on the Great White Way. Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3108 Word Count http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3106?utm_source=rss To be or not to be, that is the question. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Happy families are all alike, unhappy families are unhappy each in their own way. What do these famous sentences have in common? They are all general statements. Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3106 Teachers at Work http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3105?utm_source=rss What happens when nouns turn into verbs, and how can language arts educators use these "verbings" as teachable moments? Fitch O'Connell, a longtime teacher of English as a foreign language, takes a look at this "trending" topic. Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3105 Candlepower http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/candlepwr/3104?utm_source=rss Of all the orthographic garnishes to be found among American brands, the most popular by far is the umlaut, the double dot that's common in German, Turkish, Swedish, and Finnish — and nonexistent in English. We can't help wondering: What's üp with that? Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/candlepwr/3104 Department of Word Lists http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wl/3103?utm_source=rss 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 finds himself navigating the seamy underbelly of Manhattan parking. Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wl/3103 Teachers at Work http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3101?utm_source=rss Michelle Dunaway, who teaches English and journalism at Francis Howell High School in St. Charles, Missouri, writes that interviewing is an integral part of teaching students about public speaking. She encourages English teachers to think of interviewing as "a way for students to start small in building up their public speaking repertoire." Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3101 Blog Excerpts http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/blogexcerpts/3102?utm_source=rss The Dictionary of American Regional English (a.k.a. DARE) is finally completed — and it only took fifty years to do it! In the Boston Globe, Visual Thesaurus editor Ben Zimmer looks back on this monument to American speech, and looks ahead to new ways of approaching dialectology. Read his column here (http://bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/01/15/american-dialects-from/XqI0XVzZBcwub6MA1F2fSK/story.html). Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/blogexcerpts/3102 Dog Eared http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/dogeared/3100?utm_source=rss My friend Laura knows four languages plus "bits and pieces" of six others. That's impressive, but it's not quite in the same league as folks who pick up languages the way George Clooney picks up starlets: with frightening ease. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a lot written, in academic or popular literature, on hyperpolyglots: people who know not just two or three languages, but six or ten or twenty. Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/dogeared/3100 Word Count http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3099?utm_source=rss When to use "who" and when "whom" -- this is the subject of our inquiry (and the object of our search). Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3099 Word Count http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3095?utm_source=rss When I started writing back in high school, I developed the nervous practice of producing a sentence and then going back to edit it, immediately. Perhaps you do the same thing? I advise you to take a hard look at your own writing and, break the instant-editing habit as quickly as possible. Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3095 Word Count http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3094?utm_source=rss "Writers struggle to get the right words down in the right order, to put every comma, or nearly every comma, in its proper place; and readers follow the writers' final sequence of words and commas as printed on the page," Michael Lydon writes, "but what happens between writer and reader is far more amorphous, more emotional than the precision needed for the process would suggest." Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3094 Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3091?utm_source=rss As the selection of the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year approached, a certain air of inevitability had begun to surround occupy, the word revitalized by the Occupy protest movement. And sure enough, when the assembled throngs met in Portland, Oregon, where the ADS held its annual meeting in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America, occupy emerged victorious as the Word of 2011. Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3091 Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3090?utm_source=rss Greetings from Portland, Oregon, where the American Dialect Society is having its annual conference. As chair of the New Words Committee, I had the honor of presiding over the nominating session for the Word of the Year. On Friday evening, winners will be selected from the different categories, and then nominations will be made for the overall category of Word of the Year. What do you think the category winners should be, and what should be crowned the Word of 2011? Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3090 Word Count http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3087?utm_source=rss Bill Walsh, a multiplatform editor at The Washington Post and longtime usage maven, poses a mathematical question: If I start with $100 and end up with $250, did that money grow 2 1/2 times? Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3087 Evasive Maneuvers http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/evasive/3086?utm_source=rss Sadly, I won't be in Portland for the American Dialect Society's meeting, that annual gathering of learned lexicographers and amateur wordinistas. This is an outrage. What foul conspiracy of left-wing moonbats, right-wing wingnuts, and middle-wing batnuts conspired to keep me away? Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/evasive/3086 Language Lounge http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/3084?utm_source=rss A recent New York Times article reports that the Philippines has now overtaken India as the hub of the outsourced call center. The article contains a telling characterization of the Philippines as "a former United States colony that has a large population of young people who speak lightly accented English and, unlike many Indians, are steeped in American culture." Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/3084 Word Count http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3082?utm_source=rss In day-to-day discourse, we don't usually encounter terms that are genuinely problematic. If someone throws something at us that's clearly wrong, like calvary for cavalry, we still get it. If my dialect is "She took a cake to the party," whereas yours is "She brought a cake to the party," I'll still understand you. Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/3082 Blog Excerpts http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/blogexcerpts/3083?utm_source=rss Ben Trawick-Smith is an actor with a deep interest in English dialects. On his Dialect Blog, he takes on a range of interesting linguistic issues. His latest post is perfect for the new year: it's all about the song that we butcher every New Year's Eve, "Auld Lang Syne." Get enlightened about the Scottish tune here (http://dialectblog.com/2012/01/01/auld-lang-syne-faq/). Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/blogexcerpts/3083