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In Vocabulary at the Core, Amy Benjamin and John T. Crow assert that word study should play a more significant role in English class and across the curriculum — as emphasized by the Common Core State Standards. In this excerpt, Benjamin and Crow explain the difference between receptive control and productive control of words and why our students' receptive vocabulary remains considerably larger than their productive vocabulary.  Continue reading...
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As Americans celebrate Columbus Day, it's worth reflecting on the complicated cultural and linguistic legacy that Christopher Columbus left behind. There's a single word that aptly illustrates this legacy and all of its contradictions: Indians, the mistaken name that Columbus gave to the native peoples of the Americas.  Continue reading...
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As teachers begin to grapple with the demands of the Common Core State Standards, they may be overlooking a discrete language standard living in the shadows of those major shifts.  Continue reading...
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Two US states celebrate their centenaries in 2012: Arizona and New Mexico. We join them this month with a look at their unique contributions to English, and the characteristic ways in which language contact gives rise to borrowing, hybridization, and neologisms.  Continue reading...
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Blog Excerpts

Mysteries of Vernacular

Here's a project we can get behind: Mysteries of Vernacular, which presents etymological stories behind common words via beautiful papercraft animation. One word per letter of the alphabet is planned: so far they've finished assassin, clue, hearse, and pants. Check 'em out.
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In my most recent column for the Boston Globe, I poke fun at new advertising slogans that Apple is using for its iPod line: the latest iPod Nano is "Completely Renanoed," while the iPod Touch is "Engineered for Maximum Funness." Whereas renanoed at least shows a modicum of creativity (turning Nano into a verb capable of taking the re- prefix), funness seems to be an unnecessarily cutesy elaboration on plain old fun. But hang on: can we make a distinction between fun and funness?  Continue reading...
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"You must be a ringer," the journalism instructor told the student, who insisted that, though he had many years of experience in other jobs, he had never been a journalist. "I admit I had to look that term up," the student said later." I wasn't sure if it calling me a ringer was a compliment or an insult."  Continue reading...
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4 5 6 7 8 Displaying 36-42 of 709 Articles