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  1. Behind the Dictionary

     Inside the OED, Part 2: Expanding Electronically
    Wed Aug 06 00:00:00 EDT 2008
    Last week in part one of our interview with Oxford English Dictionary editor at large Jesse Sheidlower, we talked about the OED's century-and-a-half reliance on volunteer readers to help gather historical citations — a practice now trendily called "crowdsourcing." This week we delve into how the OED has adapted to the digital age through the creation of the online edition, which includes the entire text of the 20-volume print edition as well as all the newly revised material for the planned Third Edition. It's an unprecedented electronic undertaking, but some worry that it presages the end of the print OED.

  2. Backstory

     Bonnie Shimko, author of "Kat's Promise"
    Sat Oct 28 00:00:00 EDT 2006

    The fact that I've written anything at all astounds me. I certainly didn't end up being a writer on purpose.

    When I was a teenager (in the sixties), I wanted to be a famous artist -- the mysterious, dramatic type hidden away in a loft in NYC. Problem was, I didn't have any talent. So I became a second-grade teacher in a tiny rural town in northeastern New York. After thirty-three years, I retired, thinking I'd spend the rest of my life doing not a whole lot. That goes flat fast. I tried passing the time by refinishing furniture. No fun at all. A friend and I went into "business" making and selling little girls' smocked dresses. She smocked and I sold. It was a hoot for me but not for her. Then my son (a college senior at the time) won a national writing competition sponsored by the Kennedy Center. I thought maybe I could write something.

  3. Dog Eared

     "The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language"
    Thu Nov 15 00:00:00 EST 2012
    The Horologicon ("book of hours") is a reference book. Its author, Mark Forsyth (who writes the Inky Fool blog), says so. But it is a very unusual reference book — the kind you could read from cover to cover in an evening or two, and would, willingly and happily.

  4. Word Routes

     From the Subprime to the Ridiculous
    Thu Jul 10 00:00:00 EDT 2008
    If there's one word that captures the zeitgeist of our current economic downturn, it's subprime. The American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Year for 2007, and as I described in my last column it is among the new entries in the latest updates of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. But it's a pretty odd word when you stop to think about it. The newly announced Merriam-Webster definition reads as follows: "having or being an interest rate that is higher than a prime rate and is extended especially to low-income borrowers." Wait a minute: a loan with a rate that is higher than prime is called sub-prime? How did that happen?

  5. Word Count

     Time and the Writer
    Mon Feb 10 00:00:00 EST 2014
    "Try reading books by your favorite writers in the order they were written, and you'll find the effects of time on each writer's spirit," says Michael Lydon, who considers how time shaped Leo Tolstoy into a mature prose stylist.

  6. Behind the Dictionary

     April 15th: A Most Taxing Day for Dictionaries
    Wed Apr 15 00:00:00 EDT 2009
    While most of us view April 15th as the day the tax man cometh (and our income goeth), it marked a more auspicious occasion in 1755. That was the day Samuel Johnson published his massive two-volume, 42,773-word dictionary of the English language. Mim Harrison, founding editor of Levenger Press, takes a look back.

  7. Word Count

     How Copy Editors Are Killing Restrictive "Which"
    Thu Jun 13 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    The distinction between that and which is a favorite among usage writers. It's an interesting usage item for several reasons: first, it is an invention that was first proposed in the early 1800s yet didn't catch on until the 1900s; second, it's primarily, though not exclusively, an American distinction; and third, it has been very successful in print, though I think a good portion of its success is attributable to copy editors.

  8. Contest

     The Visual Thesaurus Crossword Puzzle: December Edition
    Thu Dec 25 00:00:00 EST 2008
    Happy holidays from everyone at the Visual Thesaurus. This month we've got a puzzle in the holiday spirit. Solve it and you could win a Visual Thesaurus T-shirt!

  9. Contest

     The Visual Thesaurus Crossword Puzzle: January Edition
    Fri Jan 29 00:00:00 EST 2010
    The weather outside might be frightful, but you can cozy up by the fire with our winter-themed crossword puzzle. Solve it and you could win a Visual Thesaurus T-shirt!

  10. Word Count

     Misbegottens: More Twisted Idioms
    Thu Oct 17 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    Last week, we talked about some idioms that have been twisted by people who write them as they hear them, not as the phrase should read. Here are some more. Some of these twisted phrases make some sense, because they use words that seem to fit in the phrase, until you really dig into them.
155 156 157 158 159 Displaying 1561-1570 of 3460 Results