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)?  Continue reading...

A dictionary definition is a place to start (or end); it cannot capture a word's essence or connotation. Students need to learn that words — like people — have personalities. Some get along with everybody. Some only get along with other select words. Some are comfortable everywhere, while some have special hangouts or niches.  Continue reading...

My wife and I were out Christmas shopping last week and came home with an armload of classic holiday DVDs that we somehow didn't already own. She'd gathered up every title you probably know, and we spent a couple of evenings watching our way through the pile. During this latter-day review of the holiday favorites of our childhood, it struck me that there were a surprising number of terms and phrases that had become familiar either directly from these Christmas classics or from their sources.  Continue reading...

In this week's worksheet for teachers, we're not stuffing animals (thats taxidermy); we're just sorting them. Binomial nomenclature is the scientific system of classifying each organism by giving it a two-part name indicating its genus and its species (e.g., "Homo sapiens" is the binomial name for human).  Continue reading...

I passed Grade 11 Math only by promising to never, ever, take math again. At the time, I thought it was a trick question!

After seeing two of my kids struggle with learning disabilities, I now think I have dyscalculia. Regardless, I do an awful lot of basic arithmetic for my writing, and I think you might benefit from doing some too.  Continue reading...

Kitty. Tron. Legit. All these words appeared in the 2011 edition of the yearbook I sponsor. Students used these as slang; all three were used to describe something cool. Aside from legit, which seems to have been around for a while, I'm not sure the other two stuck.  Continue reading...

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.  Continue reading...