Search the Site

Your Search:
83 84 85 86 87 Displaying 841-850 of 3488 Results

  1. Word Count

     The Power of Place
    Thu Jun 06 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    "He's a real nowhere man, living in a nowhere land..."
    —Lennon-McCartney

    That's a great lyric in a great song, but I don't recommend describing nowhere people and places as a goal for struggling writers.

  2. Evasive Maneuvers

     Ladies' Night at the Euphemism Bar
    Wed Jun 05 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    I believe in equality: in society and in columns. Last month, I looked at the prolific use of gentleman in euphemisms. This month, I turn to lady. Lady euphs prove something I always suspected: the English language is seldom a well-behaved lady, but it always shows you a good time.

  3. Teachers at Work

     Writing Prompts for Students: How to Strike the Right Balance
    Tue Jun 04 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    How much is too much? Currently a commercial for AT&T is asking if more is better, and, of course, the little kids sitting in the circle clamor that more is definitely better. In the world of writing prompts, though, more or less becomes one of those debatable things. Be too specific, and a teacher may actually be limiting student creativity. Yet, being too vague might frazzle kids completely.

  4. Blog Excerpts

     How To Speak Teen
    Tue Jun 04 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    Visual Thesaurus contributor James Harbeck recently appeared on NPR's Weekend Edition to give a phonetic breakdown of noises that teenagers often make. Listen to the segment here, and read more about teenage sounds on The Week here. Breathy-voiced long low back unrounded vowel with advanced tongue root, anyone?

  5. Language Lounge

     Self Styling
    Mon Jun 03 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    On the shortlist of the American Dialect Society's word of the year for 2012 was Gangnam-style. It lost out to hashtag, but like the winner, it's a compound word (in fact all of the nominees were) and it points up an interesting feature of English: the way that people coin adjectives with the productive suffix -style, and the way in which speakers are assumed to interpret them correctly on the basis of real-world knowledge; such compounds are rarely defined in dictionaries.

  6. Word Routes

     2013 Spelling Bee: Arvind Mahankali Turns "German Curse" Into "German Blessing"
    Fri May 31 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    Much of the buzz leading up to the 86th Scripps National Spelling Bee had to do with the first-ever inclusion of vocabulary questions in the off-stage portions of the competition. But in the end, it came down to a traditional spelling face-off over tricky words originating from other languages. Arvind Mahankali of Bayside Hills, New York had been stumped by German-derived words in the last two Bees, but this time a German word was his salvation.

  7. Word Routes

     2013 Spelling Bee: 42 Make it Through Vocabulary-Infused Preliminaries
    Thu May 30 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    Two hundred eighty-one young contestants took on the new-and-improved preliminaries of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which for the first time included questions about words' definitions along with their spellings. After the dust had cleared, 42 of them managed to make it to Thursday's semifinals.

  8. Word Routes

     2013 Spelling Bee: Vocabulary Questions in the Spotlight
    Wed May 29 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    It's time once again for the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and the big news going into this year's competition is the inclusion of vocabulary questions along with the traditional spelling questions. Even though the new multiple-choice questions testing contestants' knowledge of definitions will only appear in the off-stage computerized portions of the Bee, it's still a controversial shift in format.

  9. Wordshop

     How to Teach Setting: Beyond Time and Place
    Wed May 29 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    When Snoopy takes out his typewriter and begins to compose a novel atop his doghouse, he always begins with "It was a dark and stormy night..." This phrase — originally appearing in a schmaltzy 19th century British novel — has come to symbolize all that can go wrong with melodramatic writing, especially the clumsy attempts of a writer trying to evoke a dramatic setting within the first sentence of a work of literature.

  10. Candlepower

     Branding by Definition
    Tue May 28 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    Some brands capture your attention with made-up words: Qajack and Squidoo, hungerectomy and splurjobbing. Other brands deliberately misspell familiar words: Klout, Flickr, Cheez-It. But some companies prefer a more traditional way to make an impression — one that might have pleased your third-grade teacher. They consult a dictionary.
83 84 85 86 87 Displaying 841-850 of 3488 Results