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Dog Eared
Generational Words Birth a Terrific Lexical Book
Thu Oct 29 00:00:00 EDT 2015
No matter what generation you were born in, your destiny is to hear incessant blather about generations, as journalists are obsessed by the topic, particularly when it comes to making the younger generation seem like unholy mutants born to usher in the end of days. Allan Metcalf's new word book—From Skedaddle to Selfie: Words of the Generations—is a timely read for era-obsessed readers with a taste for history and, of course, words.
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Word Count
Politics and Prose
Mon Oct 26 00:00:00 EDT 2015
In the seventy-one columns I've written for the Visual Thesaurus, I've stuck to writing on writing, examining the art's principles and its quirks. But now with the presidential debates growing hot as autumn grows cold, I'd like to say a few words about the role of writing and politics in our democracy.
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Word Routes
A Real Humdinger of an Etymology
Tue Oct 20 00:00:00 EDT 2015
On the latest installment of the Slate podcast Lexicon Valley, I look into the origins of the slang term humdinger, which hit it big around the turn of the 20th century to refer to someone or something remarkable or impressive.
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Candlepower
Fall-ify Your Vocabtoberfest!
Mon Oct 19 00:00:00 EDT 2015
Maybe it's the newly chilly air, or the dwindling daylight, or the thrilling prospect of costumes and candy. Whatever the reason, each autumn brings a harvest of seasonal neologisms, word blends, and commercial coinages as colorful as the falling leaves.
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Word Count
Why You Should Paraphrase More
Thu Oct 15 00:00:00 EDT 2015
When I was in high school and university, I hated writing. I adored editing, mind you, but I found the pain of extracting that first draft torturous. The most painful part? Paraphrasing.
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Dog Eared
Eggcorns Finally Get Their Due in a Bountiful Book of Malapropisms
Thu Oct 08 00:00:00 EDT 2015
Do you like sowing your wild oaks? Do you sometimes feel like a social leopard? Could you use a new leaf on life? Or do you just enjoy the infinite creativity of the English language, even when people make mistakes? If you answered yes to any of the above, you need to check out Robert Alden Rubin's terrific new book Going to Hell in a Hen Basket: An Illustrated Dictionary of Modern Malapropisms.
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Evasive Maneuvers
Minding Like-Minded Individuals With a Low Blue Flame
Tue Oct 06 00:00:00 EDT 2015
Have you encountered a transition counselor lately? I hope not. In the real world, a transition counselor is a diabolical euphemism for a profession made famous by George Clooney's character in Up in the Air: someone who fires people for a living. But in Matt Kindt's extraordinary conspiracy thriller Mind MGMT, the term has an even darker sense: assassin.
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Language Lounge
Weed Words
Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2015
I live in the heart of a small lexical explosion—Boulder, Colorado, home to about 100,000 people (of whom 30,000 are university students), and about two dozen retail marijuana dispensaries. The lexical explosion is in the marketing vocabulary of a product that until recently, despite its being universally known and widely used, was contraband.
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Word Count
What a Broken Washer Can Teach You About Writing
Wed Sep 30 00:00:00 EDT 2015
My husband and I had a plethora of reasons for rebuilding our house five years ago. One reason was that we wanted to head into our retirement years without having to worry about upkeep for a 100-year-old house.
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Word Count
Glints of Good Writing in Prose
Tue Sep 29 00:00:00 EDT 2015
Since fiction writers can conjure up big chunks of a text by consulting only their imaginations, we often think of fiction as more personal than nonfiction. But when reading the most fact-based nonfiction, I and many readers still want to connect one-to-one, soul-to-soul, with the writer as well as with the characters.
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