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  1. Blog Excerpts

     The Language of Food
    Thu Oct 15 00:00:00 EDT 2009
    Stanford linguist Dan Jurafsky has launched a fascinating new blog called The Language of Food. So far he's posted meticulous studies of the words entrée, ketchup, and dessert. Check it out here.

  2. Word Count

     Save Your "Regards" for Broadway
    Wed Oct 14 00:00:00 EDT 2009
    Wendalyn Nichols, editor of the Copyediting newsletter, offers useful tips to copy editors and anyone else who prizes clear and orderly writing. Here she illuminates the proper usage of the surprisingly tricky word "regard."

  3. Candlepower

     Edward Gelsthorpe, Father of the Cran-Morph
    Tue Oct 13 00:00:00 EDT 2009
    The passing of New York Times language columnist William Safire has been well noted here (by VT executive producer Ben Zimmer) and elsewhere. The death of Edward Gelsthorpe, who died September 12 and whose Times obituary appeared directly beneath Safire's on September 28, has been less commented on. Yet in his way Gelsthorpe had almost as powerful an influence on the world of words as did Safire.

  4. Word Routes

     The Biggest Misnomer of All Time?
    Mon Oct 12 00:00:00 EDT 2009
    When Columbus arrived in the New World 517 years ago, this pivotal moment of cultural contact was fraught with misunderstanding. Upon finding the native Lucayans on the small Caribbean island where he made landfall, Columbus dubbed them Indians, under the mistaken impression that he had navigated all the way to the eastern shores of Asia. Explorers and cartographers quickly figured out that Columbus was utterly mistaken, and yet even now his monumental error lives on in the word Indian to refer to indigenous peoples throughout the Americas.

  5. Word Routes

     At the End of the Day, What's, You Know, Annoying? Whatever!
    Fri Oct 09 00:00:00 EDT 2009
    It was all over the news yesterday: according to a new poll from the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, whatever is the word that Americans find most annoying. The poll asked respondents which word or phrase bothered them the most, and whatever easily swamped the competition, with 47 percent naming it the most annoying. You know came in at 25 percent, it is what it is at 11 percent, anyway at 7 percent, and at the end of the day at 2 percent. Despite the widespread media attention, we should ask: does this poll really tell us anything useful?

  6. Word Count

     The Art of Phrasing
    Thu Oct 08 00:00:00 EDT 2009
    Michael Lydon, a well-known writer on popular music since the 1960s, has for many years also been writing about writing. Lydon's essays, written with a colloquial clarity, shed fresh light on familiar and not so familiar aspects of the writing art. Here Lydon expounds on phrasing, "one of writing's most ingenious tools."

  7. Evasive Maneuvers

     Nip it in the Gazoomba! A Metric Bippyload of Euphemisms
    Wed Oct 07 00:00:00 EDT 2009
    As the author of the only euphemism column in North America or star quadrant XL47, you would be correct in assuming that I enjoy euphemisms as much as sunshine and chocolate cake.

  8. Blog Excerpts

     A Daily Portmanteau
    Wed Oct 07 00:00:00 EDT 2009
    What's a dingenuity? It's "A dinner made from the most random of ingredients." And a Snaab? That's "A snob who is obsessed with his Saab," of course. Read more hilariously inventive blends on A Daily Portmanteau.

  9. Word Routes

     Do We Care Less About "Could Care Less"?
    Tue Oct 06 00:00:00 EDT 2009
    In this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, I take over the "On Language" spot to pay tribute to the man who originated the column, William Safire. (You can already read the online version here.) It's not quite as personal as the remembrance I posted here after learning of Safire's death, but it's no less heartfelt. As preparation, I took a stroll through some of the thousands of columns that Safire produced over three decades, focusing especially on his first year of language punditry, 1979. Though many of his early columns stand the test of time, one example where he was less than on-target had to do with a popular peeve: "could care less."

  10. Contest Corner

     Wearing Many Hats: Enter Now!
    Tue Oct 06 00:00:00 EDT 2009
    Here's a reminder of our current contest, based on the different roles of historical figures. Enter and you can win a Visual Thesaurus T-shirt!
216 217 218 219 220 Displaying 2171-2180 of 3488 Results