http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/?utm_source=rss Exploring the pathways of our lexicon Copyright 2013, Thinkmap Inc. All Rights Reserved. en Fri, 14 Jun 2013 00:00:00 EDT 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/would-you-prefer-a-cronut-or-a-dossant?utm_source=rss In my latest column for the Boston Globe, I look at the recent craze for "cronuts," which are a croissant-doughnut hybrid created by an upscale French bakery in Manhattan. It was such a hit that imitators have created their own hybrids using names like dossant or doissant. Regardless of these concoctions' culinary qualities, is cronut a more appealing name than other combinations of croissant and do(ugh)nut? Fri, 14 Jun 2013 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/would-you-prefer-a-cronut-or-a-dossant Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/how-emo-got-political?utm_source=rss When Fox News host Megyn Kelly gamely took on Erick Erickson, a contributor to the network, for his provocative statements about gender roles last week, she was puzzled by one word in particular that Erickson had used to describe his ideological opponents. "I don't know what the word is... some sort of liberals, eco-liberals, what did you call them?" "Emo liberals," Erickson clarified. Fri, 07 Jun 2013 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/how-emo-got-political Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/2013-spelling-bee-arvind-mahankali-turns-german-curse-into-german-blessing?utm_source=rss Much of the buzz leading up to the 86th Scripps National Spelling Bee had to do with the first-ever inclusion of vocabulary questions in the off-stage portions of the competition. But in the end, it came down to a traditional spelling face-off over tricky words originating from other languages. Arvind Mahankali of Bayside Hills, New York had been stumped by German-derived words in the last two Bees, but this time a German word was his salvation. Fri, 31 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/2013-spelling-bee-arvind-mahankali-turns-german-curse-into-german-blessing Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/2013-spelling-bee-42-make-it-through-vocabulary-infused-preliminaries?utm_source=rss Two hundred eighty-one young contestants took on the new-and-improved preliminaries of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which for the first time included questions about words' definitions along with their spellings. After the dust had cleared, 42 of them managed to make it to Thursday's semifinals. Thu, 30 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/2013-spelling-bee-42-make-it-through-vocabulary-infused-preliminaries Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/2013-spelling-bee-vocabulary-questions-in-the-spotlight?utm_source=rss It's time once again for the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and the big news going into this year's competition is the inclusion of vocabulary questions along with the traditional spelling questions. Even though the new multiple-choice questions testing contestants' knowledge of definitions will only appear in the off-stage computerized portions of the Bee, it's still a controversial shift in format. Wed, 29 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/2013-spelling-bee-vocabulary-questions-in-the-spotlight Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/leaning-back-to-look-at-lean-in?utm_source=rss "Lean in," thanks to the title of a new book by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, has become "the idiom of the moment," Motoko Rich writes in the New York Times, adding "the phrase seems to have taken on a life of its own." But where did all of this "leaning in" come from? Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/leaning-back-to-look-at-lean-in Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/an-army-of-strong-slogans?utm_source=rss In my latest column for the Boston Globe, I take a look at the rapid rise of the slogan "Boston Strong" in the month since the Marathon bombing. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but it's only the latest in a long line of "strong" slogans. Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/an-army-of-strong-slogans Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/how-baloney-got-phony?utm_source=rss An Inside Higher Ed article recently quoted Duke University physics professor Steffen Bass as describing the foolish stance of some of his colleagues as "bologna." Prof. Bass surely said baloney, a spelling that represents an Americanized pronunciation of bologna sausage, and it also came to mean "nonsense" in the 1920s. Fri, 03 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/how-baloney-got-phony Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/words-from-a-surreal-week-in-boston?utm_source=rss What the city of Boston experienced last week was described again and again as surreal. It was the only word that seemed capable of encompassing the week's unfolding events, from Monday's deadly explosions at the Boston Marathon finish line to Friday's lockdown of the city as SWAT teams zeroed in on the remaining suspect of the bombing. Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/words-from-a-surreal-week-in-boston Word Routes http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/word-on-the-street-sketchy-traffic-lingo?utm_source=rss In my latest column for The Boston Globe, I observed that Beantown has more than its fair share of local terms for sketchy traffic maneuvers: the Boston left, the Boston bump, the Boston block, and so forth. But these regional labels can be found all over the country, and new ones keep cropping up. Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/word-on-the-street-sketchy-traffic-lingo