Word lessons are everywhere--even on minivan billboards. The new ad campaign for the Honda Odyssey prominently features the neologism "Vanquility."  Continue reading...

Teachers, your students may know that they are getting a day off for Veterans Day, but they may not know why! Use this worksheet to lead your students through some Visual Thesaurus research to define the words veteran and armistice and to understand how Armistice Day became Veterans Day back in 1954. Click here for the worksheet.  Continue reading...

There it was again — a random capital. The offender was the "M" at the beginning of "Mother," as in "Her Mother was the first to notice she could really sing."

If it had been "Mother told me she thought I could really sing," it would have been fine and dandy because "Mother" would have been serving as a proper noun there, referring to a particular maternal figure. But when it's not standing in for a name, "mother" should not be capitalized.  Continue reading...

The British Library is hosting a fascinating exhibition, "Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices," exploring the history of the English language in all its diversity. Think you know your Anglo-linguistics? Try the "Evolving English" online quiz here.

Four years ago, when then-President George W. Bush surveyed the losses suffered by congressional Republicans in the midterm elections, he memorably called it a "thumping." On Wednesday, President Obama used a similarly colorful term to describe his party's electoral woes. "I’m not recommending for every future President that they take a shellacking like I did last night," he said at his press conference. That comment led many to wonder, how did shellacking come to describe a thorough defeat?  Continue reading...

It's time for the first WordMasters Challenge of the school year! Click here for details.

We recently spoke to British researcher Dan Clayton about the new educational project, "Teaching English Grammar in Schools." The project seeks to enliven the teaching of English by using real examples pulled from a corpus of texts. In part two of our interview, we asked Dan how this corpus-based approach allows both teachers and students to investigate the intricacies of the English language.  Continue reading...