Search the Site

Your Search:
92 93 94 95 96 Displaying 931-940 of 3488 Results

  1. Blog Excerpts

     That Iconic Boston Accent
    Mon Feb 18 00:00:00 EST 2013
    The "Today Show" visited Boston on Friday, and as part of the show they included a segment on the accent of the city, so immediately recognizable and so often imitated (but rarely well!). And who did they turn to for background on how the accent came to be? Our very own Ben Zimmer.

  2. Word Routes

     Would You Go on a Date with "Whomever" Has Good Grammar?
    Fri Feb 15 00:00:00 EST 2013
    In advance of Valentine's Day, the dating site Match.com released some survey results indicating that good grammar is something that both men and women on the dating scene use to judge their potential mates. That finding led to a joke on Saturday Night Live that was supposed to illustrate "good grammar" but, ironically enough, failed to.

  3. Candlepower

     XOXO Marks the Spot
    Thu Feb 14 00:00:00 EST 2013
    Branding expert Nancy Friedman has been seeing a lot of X's and O's lately, "in the breezy, cozy, kissy-huggy names of companies and products." And she says that "Valentine's Day seems the perfect occasion to cuddle up with them."

  4. Word Count

     Writing Lessons From My Piano
    Wed Feb 13 00:00:00 EST 2013
    I desperately wanted piano lessons as a child. Too bad for me my parents couldn't afford them. Instead, I watched enviously as my classmates carried their music books under their arms and marched off to meet their piano teachers. Why couldn't I do that?

  5. Word Count

     Popularity Contest: Words for the People
    Tue Feb 12 00:00:00 EST 2013
    Merrill Perlman, who writes the "Language Corner" column for Columbia Journalism Review, guides us through some commonly confused words for common folk: "It's a popular mistake to confuse populace and populous. Throw in the similar-sounding populist, and even more mistakes are made. They mean almost the same thing, only different."

  6. Blog Excerpts

     The Local Lexicons of Baristas
    Tue Feb 12 00:00:00 EST 2013
    "Across America, independent coffee bars have developed private vocabularies to describe the intricate beverages they brew and the idiosyncrasies of those who order them," writes Ben Schott in Sunday's New York Times. Schott presents an "Op-Art" revealing some of this local barista slang, from "crushtomer" to "bro 'spro." Check it out here.

  7. Edulinks

     Find the Literature You Need... Online
    Tue Feb 12 00:00:00 EST 2013

    Looking for texts accessible online? These e-text sites contain thousands of unbound texts. Anne of Green Gables, The Blue Fairy Book, Animal Farm, all of Mark Twain's writing? It's on there. Bonus: you can grab the vocabulary from any of these texts using VocabGrabber. 

  8. Dog Eared

     "Trench Talk": A Compelling Look at the Words of WWI
    Mon Feb 11 00:00:00 EST 2013
    Any news event brings new terms and phrases to life while reinvigorating old ones. Look how the recent Presidential election spread malarkey, binders full of women, and bayonets across headlines and tweets. Forevermore, those words will jog the memory of anyone who was paying attention to the 2012 election.

  9. Word Routes

     A "Steep Learning Curve" for "Downton Abbey"
    Fri Feb 08 00:00:00 EST 2013
    Last year, Season 2 of the popular British TV series "Downton Abbey" yielded a bumper crop of linguistic anachronisms. In Season 3, now airing stateside on PBS, the out-of-place language has continued. There was a particularly glaring anachronism in the most recently aired episode: "steep learning curve."

  10. Word Count

     Flash Card: Remembrance of Things Past
    Thu Feb 07 00:00:00 EST 2013
    My sister has a problem with "passed" and "past." She recently commented thus on a Facebook post about the current flu outbreak: "When I flew this passed week, I wore a mask! I was mortified, but I can't remember the last time I flew and didn't get a cold, and I'm sick of it!" (I really wish I'd seen her in that mask.)
92 93 94 95 96 Displaying 931-940 of 3488 Results