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6 7 8 9 10 Displaying 71-80 of 103 Results

  1. Evasive Maneuvers

     Conscious Uncoupling With Possible Debt Adjustment
    Wed Apr 02 00:00:00 EDT 2014
    A few of my female friends have a fun hobby. Not knitting. Not kickboxing. Not baking pies. Not vampire-slaying. Hating Gwyneth Paltrow. I haven't fully grasped my friends' loathing in the past, but I'm beginning to understand, thanks to a humdinger of a euphemism Paltrow used to describe her impending divorce: conscious uncoupling.

  2. Word Routes

     Now Presenting: The Nominees for the 2011 Word of the Year
    Fri Jan 06 00:00:00 EST 2012
    Greetings from Portland, Oregon, where the American Dialect Society is having its annual conference. As chair of the New Words Committee, I had the honor of presiding over the nominating session for the Word of the Year. On Friday evening, winners will be selected from the different categories, and then nominations will be made for the overall category of Word of the Year. What do you think the category winners should be, and what should be crowned the Word of 2011?

  3. Word Routes

     Presenting the Nominees for 2013 Word of the Year
    Fri Jan 03 00:00:00 EST 2014
    At the American Dialect Society's annual conference in Minneapolis, we have nominated words in various categories in our Word of the Year selection. I presided over the nominating session on Thursday in my capacity as chair of the society's New Words Committee. Winners will be selected from the different categories on Friday evening, culminating in the vote for the overall Word of the Year. Here's the list of nominees.

  4. Word Routes

     Beyond "Boyfriend" and "Girlfriend"
    Tue Jul 15 00:00:00 EDT 2008
    Last Friday I was delighted to be a return guest on the Wisconsin Public Radio Show "At Issue with Ben Merens" (audio available here). Our ostensible topic was "words of the summer" (including skadoosh, of course!), but once we started taking calls from listeners, the floor was open to any topic of interest to word-savvy Wisconsinites. Much like what happened when I was on the show last December, conversation turned to perceived "gaps" in the English language that callers thought should be filled with new coinages. This time around, Robert from Coloma expressed dissatisfaction with the words boyfriend and girlfriend, suggesting a new word to cover both: inti-mate.

  5. Word Routes

     Get Your Shovels Ready!
    Thu Jan 08 00:00:00 EST 2009
    The countdown is on for the American Dialect Society's selection for 2008 Word of the Year, the oldest and most prestigious WOTY event in the land. The ADS selection will happen Friday, January 9, at the group's annual meeting, held this year in San Francisco. The voting is open to the public, so Visual Thesaurus readers in the Bay area are welcome to drop in for the WOTY fun. I'll be attending (I'm on the ADS Executive Council), and I have a few favorites I'll be lobbying for. One of them is a word that offers a ray of light in our current moment of economic doom and gloom: shovel-ready.

  6. Word Routes

     Presenting the Nominees for 2015 Word of the Year
    Fri Jan 08 00:00:00 EST 2016
    Greetings from Washington, D.C., where the American Dialect Society is holding its annual conference. On Thursday, in my capacity as chair of the society's New Words Committee, I presided over the nominating session for various categories in our Word of the Year selection. Winners will be selected from the different categories on Friday evening, culminating in the vote for the overall Word of the Year. Here's the list of nominees.

  7. Word Count

     Word Tasting Note: "Lagniappe"
    Wed Dec 26 00:00:00 EST 2012
    In his latest Word Tasting Note, James Harbeck presents a baker's dozen of reasons why he likes lagniappe, a word meaning "a small gift, especially one given by a merchant to a customer who makes a purchase."

  8. Word Routes

     The Avuncular Anchorman
    Mon Jul 20 00:00:00 EDT 2009
    In the outpouring of remembrances since the passing of Walter Cronkite on Friday, two polysyllabic words beginning with "a" have proved to be inextricably linked to "the most trusted man in America": avuncular and anchorman. It's hard to describe Mr. Cronkite without using one or the other, or preferably both.

  9. Word Routes

     2010 Spelling Bee: On to the Semifinals!
    Fri Jun 04 00:00:00 EDT 2010
    After the first day of competition at the 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee, the field of 273 contestants has been winnowed down to 48, who will move on to Friday's semifinal round. They'll all be looking to follow in the path of last year's winner, Kavya Shivashankar. As usual, the preliminary rounds featured some fascinatingly obscure words, from famulus (a close attendant, as to a scholar) to nullipara (a woman who has never given birth to a child).

  10. Word Routes

     Words from a "Surreal" Week in Boston
    Mon Apr 22 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    What the city of Boston experienced last week was described again and again as surreal. It was the only word that seemed capable of encompassing the week's unfolding events, from Monday's deadly explosions at the Boston Marathon finish line to Friday's lockdown of the city as SWAT teams zeroed in on the remaining suspect of the bombing.
6 7 8 9 10 Displaying 71-80 of 103 Results