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  1. Teachers at Work

     The Teenagers, the Teacher, The Old Man and the Sea: Hemingway's Classic in Your Classroom
    Mon Nov 24 00:00:00 EST 2008
    True confession time: I'd never read Ernest Hemingway's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Old Man and the Sea until a couple of weeks ago, for this column. Yeesh, I know, I know, and I'm sorry. Walk away from this column if you must, convinced I'm not qualified to give you any advice for your ELA classroom. I wouldn't blame you. All I can say is that the high school I went to didn't have a cracker-jack curriculum, and, um, I hate fish. I really do. I have a phobia about all creatures of the sea, actually, and fish aren't even my most dreaded. Let's put it this way: if the book was titled The Old Man and the Squid, this column would be about a Jane Austen book.

  2. Blog Excerpts

     Japanese Words of the Year
    Fri Nov 21 00:00:00 EST 2008
    A panel of judges has selected the year's most popular Japanese words and phrases: everything from guerilla rainstorm to whispering matron. Check out the list at Pink Tentacle.

  3. Word Routes

     Mailbag Friday: "Meh"
    Fri Nov 21 00:00:00 EST 2008

    It's a special journalistic edition of Mailbag Friday! Today's question comes from Molly Eichel, assistant editor at Philadelphia City Paper:

    I was hoping you could help me out with a linguistic conundrum. I work at the Philadelphia City Paper and I wrote a blog post about the inclusion of the word meh into the upcoming edition of the Collins English Dictionary. I think meh doesn't deserve a spot in a reference book; it's slang at best and sound effect at worst. A blogger at Philadelphia Weekly disagrees. I would really like to hear your thoughts on the matter, so it becomes a legitimate discussion rather than a spat between two bloggers. What do you think about meh's inclusion into a dictionary?

  4. Dog Eared

     Spelling it Out
    Thu Nov 20 00:00:00 EST 2008
    We asked David Wolman, author of Righting the Mother Tongue, to suggest a few books about English orthography and people who have dared to modify it. Here are his recommendations.

  5. Word Count

     The Twisted History of English Spelling
    Wed Nov 19 00:00:00 EST 2008
    In his engaging new book, Righting the Mother Tongue, journalist David Wolman sets out to discover how the English language ended up with such an infuriatingly unpredictable spelling system. His journey takes him from the birthplace of Old English all the way to the spelling reformers who picket the national spelling bee. In the first installment of our two-part interview with Wolman, he tells us how -- as a self-professed poor speller -- he might have felt more comfortable a millennium ago, and how orthographic correctness became so important to speakers of English.

  6. Blog Du Jour

     Poetry for Kids
    Wed Nov 19 00:00:00 EST 2008

    Here are some great online resources for getting children interested in poetry.

    Poetry4Kids

    Giggle Poetry

    Favorite Poem Project

    Scholastic Poetry

  7. Word Routes

     Perplexed by "Nonplussed" and "Bemused"
    Tue Nov 18 00:00:00 EST 2008
    Yesterday, our "Editorial Emergency" duo of Simon Glickman and Julia Rubiner launched a salvo against a common usage of the word nonplussed, a word they "wager more people get wrong than right." That opens an interesting can of worms: if a word or phrase used to have Meaning A, but more people now use it with Meaning B, is it time for the Meaning A folks to stand aside?

  8. Candlepower

     Vocab Lab: Color Me Nonplussed
    Mon Nov 17 00:00:00 EST 2008

    "I've been really happy by how nonplussed they've been by the whole thing." -- Barack Obama on his daughters' response to the presidential campaign, People, Aug. 4, 2008

    It seems even Harvard graduate/widely acknowledged smart guy/President-Elect Barack Obama doesn't know the meaning of the word nonplussed. He's in good company. I'd wager more people get "nonplussed" wrong than right -- frequently going so far as to use the word to express nearly the opposite of what they mean. As the misuse of nonplussed threatens to overwhelm the proper use, we feel duty-bound to set the record straight.

  9. Backstory

     M.J. Rose, Author of "The Memoirist"
    Fri Nov 14 00:00:00 EST 2008
    Once upon a time, my husband and I went to Vienna on a vacation and fell in love. Not with each other -- we'd already done that -- but with the city.

  10. Blog Excerpts

     Trans-Atlantic Words of the Year
    Fri Nov 14 00:00:00 EST 2008

    Over on Separated by a Common Language, Lynne Murphy has her own trans-Atlantic twist on the usual Word of the Year selections. Make your nominations for "Best American to British import" and "Best British to American import."

252 253 254 255 256 Displaying 2531-2540 of 3488 Results