http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/?utm_source=rss Exploring the pathways of our lexicon Copyright 2012, Thinkmap Inc. All Rights Reserved. en Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/images/common/logo_on_white.gif http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/?utm_source=rss Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3133?utm_source=rss Are you hooked on "Downton Abbey"? The second season of the British period drama has been airing in the U.S. on PBS, and it's been an addictive treat for Anglophiles. But just how accurate is the language used on the show? Though it mostly remains true to its post-Edwardian setting, at times the talk is a bit anachronistic. Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3133 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 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3120 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 05:00:00 UTC 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 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3090 Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3074?utm_source=rss Death has been in the news lately, with the passing of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il and former Czech president Vaclav Havel within hours of each other. Despite the very different legacies of the two world leaders, most English-language news outlets used the same wording to describe their deaths: in obituaries, both Kim and Havel simply died. But English, like many other world languages, has a rich vocabulary of terms for dying, from the blunt to the euphemistic. Thu, 22 Dec 2011 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3074 Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3066?utm_source=rss Yes, it's time for that annual tradition: picking the words and phrases that best define the past year. Did occupy occupy your attention? Were you talking about tiger moms or tiger blood? Or were you paralyzed by the condition known as FOMO (fear of missing out)? Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3066 Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3059?utm_source=rss Earlier this week, Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich emerged from a powwow with Donald Trump, and they had an announcement to make. Trump told reporters that, at Gingrich's request, he was starting a program for disadvantaged New York schoolchildren, modeled on his competitive reality TV show "The Apprentice." "We're going to be picking ten young, wonderful children, and we're going to make them apprenti," Trump said. That's right, he said apprenti. Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3059 Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3047?utm_source=rss Today is the day after Thanksgiving, when holiday shopping kicks off and sales-hunters are in full frenzy. The day has come to be known in the United States as "Black Friday," and there are a number of myths about the origin of the name. Retailers would like you to believe that it's the day when stores turn a profit on the year, thus "going into the black." But don't you believe it: the true origins come from traffic-weary police officers in Philadelphia in the early 1960s. Fri, 25 Nov 2011 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3047 Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3042?utm_source=rss Visiting Australia earlier this week, President Obama broke the ice by injecting some Australian slang into his public speeches. He used a selection of Aussie-isms like chinwag and ear-bashing for comic effect, but it's probably a good thing that he didn't go overboard by trying to mimic a broad Australian English accent (often called "Strine"). British Prime Minister David Cameron, meanwhile, wasn't so lucky: he got into some hot water for an ill-advised attempt at Strine. Fri, 18 Nov 2011 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3042 Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3034?utm_source=rss Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of taking part in a lively panel discussion entitled "More than a Century of Style," celebrating The Chicago Manual of Style. The event, held at the University of Chicago and sponsored by the public radio station WBEZ, brought out more than two hundred committed stylistas, with hundreds more tuning in to a live stream on Facebook. Here's an indication of the type of crowd that braved that rainy Chicago night: when University of Chicago Press managing editor Anita Samen announced that she was "passionately pro-serial-comma," she was met with rapturous applause. Fri, 11 Nov 2011 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3034