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  1. Word Count

     Memorial Day: Is It "Celebrated" or "Observed"?
    Mon May 27 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    On the last Monday in May, Memorial Day is celebrated in the United States. But wait: is celebrated the right word? Would it be more appropriate to say Memorial Day is observed? Wendalyn Nichols, an experienced editor and lexicographer, guides us through this usage quandary.

  2. Contest

     The Visual Thesaurus Crossword Puzzle: May Edition
    Fri May 24 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    The Scripps National Spelling Bee is being held next week, and to celebrate the occasion we have a spelling-themed crossword. Figure it out and you could win a Visual Thesaurus T-shirt!

  3. Word Routes

     Leaning Back to Look at "Lean In"
    Thu May 23 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    "Lean in," thanks to the title of a new book by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, has become "the idiom of the moment," Motoko Rich writes in the New York Times, adding "the phrase seems to have taken on a life of its own." But where did all of this "leaning in" come from?

  4. Word Count

     Participial Con-Fusion: When Possession is the Law
    Wed May 22 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    WARNING: Grammar lesson ahead.

    If you ever knew what a "participle" was, you may have forgotten. Same with the word "gerund." And if you ever heard the term "fused participle," you probably zoned out completely.

  5. Behind the Dictionary

     "Beat-Upedness"?
    Tue May 21 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    In February, the author Gary Schmidt was interviewed by Michele Norris on NPR about his novel entitled OK for Now. Schmidt said this about the book's protagonist: "He brings all of his beat-upedness with him." "Beat-upedness"?

  6. Word Count

     Such Examples as These
    Mon May 20 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    Recently on the Copyediting-L discussion board, member Levi Bookin presented this conundrum: one of his authors avoids the phrase such as to such an extreme that he seems allergic to it. Possibly, Bookin wrote, this is because he dislikes commas so much.

  7. Word Routes

     An Army of "Strong" Slogans
    Fri May 17 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    In my latest column for the Boston Globe, I take a look at the rapid rise of the slogan "Boston Strong" in the month since the Marathon bombing. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but it's only the latest in a long line of "strong" slogans.

  8. Word Count

     Unpalatable: A Plateful of Similar Words
    Thu May 16 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    The artists were being praised for their technique in which, the article said, they "use only pallet knives, not brushes." The conference attendees were told that "it's not too early to start whetting your palette for" the food expected to be served. And the article talked about a shipment of "wooden palates infested with the Asian long-horned beetle." Possibly wrong, wrong, and ouch.

  9. Word Count

     "Yes, I Could Care Less": A Mixed Bag
    Wed May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    There are two books here. I love one of them, but I don't care for the other. Somehow, they're both Yes, I Could Care Less: How to Be a Language Snob Without Being a Jerk by Washington Post copy editor Bill Walsh.

  10. Weekly Worksheet

     A Wicked Worksheet of the Week
    Wed May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    This week, we are emphasizing alliteration and assonance in some of our favorite lines from Macbeth. Click here for the worksheet and here to read the related lesson plan, "'Fair is Foul, and Foul is Fair': Sound Devices in Shakespeare's Macbeth."
84 85 86 87 88 Displaying 851-860 of 3488 Results