Mark Peters is a language columnist and lexicographer who loves collecting fanciful words, old and new. His book Yada, Yada, Doh! entertainingly chronicles words and phrases that made the leap from television to everyday speech, and his blog Wordlustitude celebrates bizarre online coinages like trouserwad, dumbitudinous, and toaster whisperer. Mark also collects euphemisms, those circumlocutions we use to soften the harsh realities of life. We asked Mark to tell us about some of the more intriguing under-the-radar euphemisms he's come across.  Continue reading...

While the presidential nominating conventions are in full swing, here are some readings on the fine art of political spin and doubletalk.

Unspeak

Weasel Words

Talking Right

What Orwell Didn't Know

Yesterday's Visual Thesaurus Word of the Day was acclamation, a timely word now that the Democratic National Convention has begun. Of course, the news out of Denver is that Barack Obama will not be nominated by acclamation ("a voting method in which shouts or applause, rather than ballots, determine the winner"). Instead, there will be a state-by-state roll call for the nomination on Wednesday night, with some votes going to Obama's erstwhile rival Hillary Clinton, followed by some sort of a unanimous consent for Obama after the first ballot. Columnists Dick Morris and Eileen McGann wrote last week that Obama should have "blocked a roll call by allowing a voice vote to nominate by acclimation." Whoops!  Continue reading...

Do you obsess about book collecting? These blogs prove you're not alone.

PhiloBiblos

A Gently Mad Blog

Book Patrol

Bibliophile Bullpen

Hi, faithful Visual Thesaurus subscribers! I'm back! Did you have a good summer? Did you miss me? I missed writing this column for you. One of the nice things about having some time off from full-time teaching (besides the long days spent in pajamas and sleeping past 6 a.m.) was that I had an opportunity to think about the next direction to take my contributions to the "Teachers at Work" feature.  Continue reading...

Welcome to Mailbag Friday, where we answer your burning questions about the origins of words and phrases. Ivete L. of New York, NY asks: "You can be overwhelmed, and I suppose you can even be underwhelmed. But why can't you be just plain whelmed?"

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"Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber..." So begins the winner of the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, in which competitors write incredibly bad opening sentences to incredibly bad novels. Read the full results here.