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  1. Word Routes

     For Dr. Who's Anniversary, the Story Behind "Dalek"
    Fri Nov 22 00:00:00 EST 2013
    While Americans this week have marked the sad anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, there is a more pleasant commemoration going on as well. On Nov. 23, 1963, the day after Kennedy died, the BBC first broadcast the science-fiction series "Doctor Who." The franchise is still going strong 50 years later. To celebrate, let's look at one of the lexical contributions of "Doctor Who": the name for the nefarious alien race, "Dalek."

  2. Weekly Worksheet

     Making Sense of Multiple Meanings
    Wed Feb 29 00:00:00 EST 2012
    Teachers, your students will certainly recognize the words featured on this week's worksheet, but they may be surprised by how they are being used. For example, if they are accustomed to thinking of a skirt as a clothing item, they may be skirting its other meaning as a verb that means "to avoid" (check out the green verb meaning bubbles on skirt's Visual Thesaurus word map).

  3. "Bad Language"

     My Writing Rules of Thumb
    Mon Oct 16 00:00:00 EDT 2006

    There are different, competing claims about the origin of the term rule of thumb. I prefer the idea that it stems from the fact that the length from the tip of the thumb to the knuckle is about one inch (or if you're a pilot and you use 1:500,000 charts, about 10 nautical miles).

    In any case, they are useful guidelines that make it easier to do something without thinking it through from first principles each time. Here are ten of mine as applied to writing:

  4. Word Count

     Why Writers Should Embrace Ambiguity
    Wed Dec 11 00:00:00 EST 2013
    When I learned I was pregnant with triplets, 20 years ago, I was desperate to know their gender. Did I, God forbid, have three boys? (In my mid-30s, I was sure I didn't have the energy for that!) Now, with the benefit of many years of parenting, I can recognize my desire for that knowledge as not just mere curiosity. It arose out of my intolerance for ambiguity.

  5. Language Lounge

     Define Your Terms!
    Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2007
    "How do I get my word in the dictionary?" This is a question that lexicographers in the Lounge and elsewhere are asked more often than you might expect. While it might be unkind to characterize the sort of person who asks the question, we hope it will be instructive to describe how new words actually make their way into dictionaries. That, in turn, should reveal why there are probably many better things to do in life than getting one's word in the dictionary. By doing some of them, you might get your word in anyway.

  6. Evasive Maneuvers

     Jeebly-Beebly! Euphemisms from the Terrestrial Dimension (and St. Louis)
    Wed Apr 06 00:00:00 EDT 2011
    Charlie Sheen's ongoing meltdown has been a godsend for the lexicon. (Read VT supreme commander Ben Zimmer, Slate's Christopher Beam, or me for more.) But what has he done for the wild world of euphemisms?

  7. Lesson Plans

     Recasting Language through Found Poetry
    Sat Sep 06 00:00:00 EDT 2008
    How can students analyze and write "found poetry" based on particular prose passages?

  8. Language Lounge

     To Lump or Not to Lump?
    Fri May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2009
    Have you browsed through a dictionary (the kind printed on paper) lately? If you have, the publishers of it are probably glad you did, while being aware that you may be part of a dying breed. This month the Lounge is the first of a two-parter examining some implications of dictionary-making in the digital age.

  9. Lesson Plans

     Stage Directions: the Vocabulary of Theatrical Delivery
    Fri Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    How can interpreting the language of stage directions enhance students' comprehension of drama?

  10. Behind the Dictionary

     Try And Try Again...
    Tue Mar 05 00:00:00 EST 2013
    Yesterday was National Grammar Day, and I've been thinking about one of the long-standing usage peeves. It doesn't usually make people's top 10 lists, but it's been out there since the 19th century: try and instead of try to. The usual complaint about this idiom is that it doesn't mean what people who say it seem to think it means.
144 145 146 147 148 Displaying 1451-1460 of 3460 Results