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  1. Behind the Dictionary

     "Mansplaining" Spawns a New Suffix
    Tue Oct 29 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    Mansplaining — a fella explaining something, unnecessarily and often incorrectly, with oodles of condescension — is as old as the hills. The word itself has been around since about 2009, but it's blossomed since, providing a potent weapon in women's arsenal against overbearing dudes.

  2. Teachers at Work

     A Tense Situation: Moving Beyond a Strict Teaching Order
    Mon Oct 28 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    In English language learning, most course books introduce verb tenses in a highly regimented fashion. As a result, many teachers who want to use short narratives for their elementary classes feel stymied because the linguistic devices from which stories are made don't follow the strict order prescribed by the course books. "It will confuse the students" is the most common cry to be heard. But this is wrong: it will not confuse the students at all.

  3. Contest

     The Visual Thesaurus Crossword Puzzle: October Edition
    Fri Oct 25 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    For the October edition of the Visual Thesaurus crossword puzzle, we've got a Halloween-themed crossword. Figure it out and you could win a Visual Thesaurus T-shirt!

  4. Word Count

     Sounds Like...: All the Ways We Misspeak and Write
    Thu Oct 24 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    For two weeks we highlighted phrases that are written from what people hear, sometimes with amusing results. A reader asked: "Aren't all those [examples] mondegreens, like 'very close veins' when 'varicose veins' is meant?" Yes and know.

  5. Word Count

     Directing Action with Light Verbs
    Wed Oct 23 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    Recently a reader of the Copyediting newsletter (which I edit) asked me about the phrase take a decision. Shouldn't it be make a decision? In researching the answer, I learned that make and take were examples of "light verbs." It's a concept that few besides linguists are concerned with, if my research is accurate, but one that if writers were more aware of could have a profound effect on their writing.

  6. Wordshop

     Debunking the Great Reading Myth
    Tue Oct 22 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    One of the most persistent myths about word acquisition is that students don't need to be taught words; they just need to read more and their vocabularies will magically expand. This theory — which I like to call "learning words by osmosis" — doesn't hold much promise for your average or struggling reader. While it may hold true for a select group of students who are strong, avid readers possessing a curiosity about words, most students don't learn words by simply encountering them in reading.

  7. Candlepower

     Ads That Rhyme: Past Their Prime?
    Mon Oct 21 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    For about four decades in the 20th century, rhyme ruled American advertising. The period between the 1940s and the 1970s was the golden age of ad jingles and rhyming slogans. Today, ads rarely incorporate verse — and when they do appear, it's often awkwardly executed, derivative, or barely recognizable as rhyme. What happened?

  8. Word Routes

     Games of "Chicken," from Hot Rodders to Politicians
    Fri Oct 18 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    With the government shutdown over and the default crisis averted, what many commentators called a "game of chicken" has finally ended on Capitol Hill. In my latest column for the Wall Street Journal, I take a look at how political stare-downs earned this appellation, and how chickens became animalistic symbols of cowardice in the first place.

  9. Word Count

     Misbegottens: More Twisted Idioms
    Thu Oct 17 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    Last week, we talked about some idioms that have been twisted by people who write them as they hear them, not as the phrase should read. Here are some more. Some of these twisted phrases make some sense, because they use words that seem to fit in the phrase, until you really dig into them.

  10. Teachers at Work

     Circular Definitions: What Makes "O" So Special
    Wed Oct 16 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    As a teacher, writer and editor, I spend a significant portion of my life reminding others (and myself) that certain pairs of words are not interchangeable, although they might seem to be. Now isn't the same as know, and affect can't pinch-hit for effect. Lose vs. loose is a particular frustration as of late. However, in all of my many years of teaching and writing, no one has ever asked me whether they ought to use O or oh, and this makes me sad.
72 73 74 75 76 Displaying 731-740 of 3488 Results