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Word Count
Come to Papa with the Hemingway App
Thu Jul 23 00:00:00 EDT 2015
Many writers today strive to avoid the passive voice. Do you know what I mean by passive? Don't be too quick to say yes!
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Candlepower
The Lingo of Pluto: New Horizons, New Words
Tue Jul 21 00:00:00 EDT 2015
Pluto is coming into startingly sharp focus, thanks to the first images and data received from the space probe New Horizons last week. As we learn more about this distant cousin of Earth, we're also expanding our linguistic horizons. Here's a closer look at some of the words and names in the Plutonian news.
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Behind the Dictionary
A Real Go-Setter
Thu Jul 16 00:00:00 EDT 2015
This week's publication of Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee's long-dormant sequel of sorts to To Kill a Mockingbird, has gotten a tune running through my head: "Go Tell Aunt Rhody." Two titles, same number of syllables, and the same syntactic structure, right down to the use of go plus another verb right next to it. But how do both those verbs fit into the place where just one verb should go?
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Behind the Dictionary
Linguistic "Humdingers" for Sticky Situations
Wed Jul 15 00:00:00 EDT 2015
What sounds do you make when words fail? A garbled stutter? A whistle? Or is there just the resounding bump of your jaw hitting the floor? Turns out, there are words to capture the wordless shock we experience when we're confronted by mess, noise, violence, or otherwise sticky situations. They're linked by sound: repeated syllables and long vowels that are onomatopoeically evocative of the sounds that come out of our mouths when our brains are overwhelmed.
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Candlepower
What Makes the Special Olympics "Special"?
Mon Jul 13 00:00:00 EDT 2015
On July 25, the fourteenth Summer Special Olympics World Games will open in Los Angeles. Over the next seven days, 7,000 athletes will compete in sporting events at venues around the city, supported by 30,000 volunteers and cheered by 500,000 spectators. ESPN will broadcast the opening ceremony. It sounds festive. It sounds inspiring. But what makes it "special"?
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Department of Word Lists
Some "Jazzy" Words and "Jazz" History
Fri Jul 10 00:00:00 EDT 2015
July 11, 2015 marks the 100th anniversary of the first musical use of the word jazz. To celebrate, we've put together a list of vocabulary from quotes about what Jazz is as an art form and what it has meant in the lives of those quoted, as well as links to the story of jazz's origin.
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Evasive Maneuvers
Customers of Size? More Like Terms of Twaddle
Wed Jul 08 00:00:00 EDT 2015
White House security has been one of the most reliable sources of comedy for the past several years, with scandal and buffoonery becoming the norm. Finally, the buffoonery has produced something I can use in endless search for tasty euphemisms.
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Word Routes
If It's "All Greek To You," Blame Monks And Shakespeare
Mon Jul 06 00:00:00 EDT 2015
The news coming out of Greece these days can be downright perplexing, leading many in the news media to recycle the old phrase, "It's all Greek to me." I talked to NPR's Weekend All Things Considered about the origin of the expression.
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Language Lounge
A Few Words of Austen
Thu Jul 02 00:00:00 EDT 2015
I've just finished reading Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility—not for the first time, probably for the fourth or fifth time. I started reading her when I was a teenager and I try to re-read one of her novels every year. They never disappoint, and at each stage of my life, I find new facets to explore in her analysis of human nature and relations, and in her unparalleled mastery of the expressiveness of English.
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Word Routes
Where Does "Bozo" Come From? Let's Not Clown Around!
Tue Jun 30 00:00:00 EDT 2015
For my latest appearance on the Slate podcast Lexicon Valley, I take a look at the clownish roots of the word bozo. While the image of TV's Bozo the Clown is familiar to many generations of American youth, how did Bozo get his name in the first place? The answer may lie in vaudeville.
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