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  1. Candlepower

     Plimsolls on Offer: British Borrowings in U.S. Marketing Speak
    Wed Nov 19 00:00:00 EST 2014
    The old adage about American and England being "two nations divided by a common language" — wrongly attributed to George Bernard Shaw, who never said or wrote it — may still hold true in some quarters. But in the language of U.S. commerce, it's fast losing its relevance. Terms that once seemed quaintly Olde English to Americans — from "bespoke" to "stockist" — are fast becoming the new normal.

  2. Blog Excerpts

     Oxford's Word of the Year is "Vape"
    Tue Nov 18 00:00:00 EST 2014
    The editors at Oxford Dictionaries have selected their choice for 2014 Word of the Year, and it is "vape," defined as "to inhale and exhale the vapor produced by an electronic cigarette or similar device." Check out Oxford's announcement here. Our contributor Nancy Friedman was on the case back in 2010, in her column, "But Wait, There's Less!" (Nancy also named "vape" one of her Words of 2013.)

  3. Word Routes

     "Getting One's Goat": Can You Help Solve the Mystery?
    Mon Nov 17 00:00:00 EST 2014
    In the latest installment of the Slate podcast "Lexicon Valley," I presented the hosts Mike Vuolo and Bob Garfield with a bit of a mystery. Where did the expression "get one's goat" come from? Theories abound, but hard evidence of the phrase's early use has only recently come to light.

  4. Word Count

     "Novel" Gazing
    Fri Nov 14 00:00:00 EST 2014
    Since 1991, November has been National Novel-Writing Month, when thousands of aspiring writers take up the challenge of knocking out a 50,000-word draft of a novel in 30 days. I don't know much about writing novels, but I have learned one thing: Don't call your opus a "fiction novel."

  5. Word Count

     "Toward" or "Towards"?
    Thu Nov 13 00:00:00 EST 2014
    Welcome to the latest in our series of quick tips on usage and style shared by Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. In this tip, Mignon advises on the usage of toward vs. towards.

  6. Word Count

     Five Ways You Probably Mismanage Your Writing Time
    Wed Nov 12 00:00:00 EST 2014
    I protect my writing time the way a mother bear guards her cubs. I write first thing in the morning and I refuse to check my email (or Facebook or Twitter or phone messages) until I've written at least 500 words.

  7. Blog Excerpts

     One Troop, Many Troops
    Tue Nov 11 00:00:00 EST 2014
    As Veterans Day is observed in the United States, a question of military usage continues to pose a puzzle: if "50,000 troops" refers to 50,000 people, then does "one troop" refer to one person? Linguist Neal Whitman looked into the matter on Veterans Day in 2009. Check out his column here.

  8. Word Count

     How Did "Quantum" Come to Mean "Really Big"?
    Mon Nov 10 00:00:00 EST 2014
    Verizon offers "Even faster FiOS Quantum Internet" speeds. Duracell has a new Quantum alkaline battery. James Bond had his Quantum of Solace. Any number of companies have "quantum" in their names as well. The implication is that "quantum" is something big and powerful, with a hint of science behind it.

  9. Evasive Maneuvers

     Charismatic, High-Concept, Low-Risk Euphemisms
    Wed Nov 05 00:00:00 EST 2014
    It's almost Euphemism of the Year time, and whoa nelly, do I have a contender: sluggish cognitive tempo. As Peter Aldhous notes in Slate, "The name of a 'new attention disorder' sounds like an Onion-style parody. It also sounds like a classic case of disease mongering: blurring normality with sickness to boost drug companies' bottom lines."

  10. Language Lounge

     Make It Count: Dealing With Language's Little "Oversights"
    Mon Nov 03 00:00:00 EST 2014
    Oversight has two rather contrasting meanings. There's oversight-1: "an unintentional omission resulting from failure to notice something"—something you generally want to avoid. And there's oversight-2: "management by overseeing the performance or operation of a person or group"—something that in a perfect world would happen all the time, and would ideally prevent a lot of oversight-1s from happening. Why use the same word to designate such contrasting things?
48 49 50 51 52 Displaying 491-500 of 3488 Results