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  1. Behind the Dictionary

     Call it "Balmy" or "Sweltering," Summer (and Summer Words) are Here
    Fri Jun 19 00:00:00 EDT 2015
    Sunday is the longest day of the year and the official start to summer. To get ready, we're taking a look at the words and terms enshrined in our language that capture our collective experience of the summer season — trotted out once again like the shorts and sandals we've been waiting all winter to wear again.

  2. Word Count

     It's Not Unusual
    Tue Dec 22 00:00:00 EST 2009
    Wendalyn Nichols, editor of the Copyediting newsletter, offers useful tips to copy editors and anyone else who prizes clear and orderly writing. Here she looks at why a seemingly simple rule of English, whether to use a or an as an indefinite article, can cause confusion.

  3. Word Count

     Killing the Zombies: "Between" and "Since"
    Mon Jun 10 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    In 2005, Arnold Zwicky introduced the term zombie rule to describe a grammar rule that isn't really a rule. Zombie rules are taught, followed, and passed along as rules we must follow to speak and write correctly. Like their namesakes, however, these rules are dead and no matter how many times it's explained that there is no grammatical basis for them, they just keep coming back.

  4. Blog Excerpts

     The Remarkable History of "Y'all"
    Mon Apr 11 00:00:00 EDT 2011

    Ben Trawick-Smith is an actor with a deep interest in English dialects. On his Dialect Blog, he takes on a range of interesting linguistic issues. One recent post traces the history of the pronoun y'all: "One word. Two continents. Three shores. Four centuries. Five separate dialects. Wow." Read the fascinating story here.

  5. Contest Corner

     VT Treasure Hunt!
    Mon Apr 20 00:00:00 EDT 2009
    Go on a Visual Thesaurus treasure hunt to track down the answers to these ten questions. If you successfully find all the answers, we will send you some authentic Visual Thesaurus booty! (Hint: you might need to brush up on some of the VT's special features here to help you find your treasure.)

  6. Blog Excerpts

     Happy Thesaurus Day!
    Fri Jan 18 00:00:00 EST 2013
    January 18th is celebrated as Thesaurus Day to honor the birthday of the author of the first thesaurus, Peter Mark Roget. Get into the spirit by reading our two-part interview with Roget biographer Joshua Kendall here and here. Also check out an ode to the thesaurus penned by Franklin P. Adams here and Johnny Carson's hilarious "Funeral for a Thesaurus Editor" sketch here.

  7. Blog Excerpts

     Happy Thesaurus Day!
    Mon Jan 18 00:00:00 EST 2016
    January 18th is celebrated as Thesaurus Day to honor the birthday of the author of the first thesaurus, Peter Mark Roget. Get into the spirit by reading our two-part interview with Roget biographer Joshua Kendall here and here. Also check out an ode to the thesaurus penned by Franklin P. Adams here and Johnny Carson's hilarious "Funeral for a Thesaurus Editor" sketch here.

  8. Blog Excerpts

     Words We Love to Hate
    Fri Jan 18 00:00:00 EST 2013
    In the wake of all the gleeful bashing of "phablet" (an ungainly blend of "phone" and "tablet"), we're opening up the floor. What words get your goat? "Moist"? "Slacks"? How about "nostril"?

  9. Language Lounge

     The Gods Must Be Multilingual
    Mon Mar 03 00:00:00 EST 2014
    An intriguing new theory holds that Egyptian animal mummies were intended as messages to the gods. The theory is yet more fodder for an age-old problem: how do we reconcile our dependence as humans upon language to communicate to divine beings who in nearly all cases are thought to have pre-existed the emergence of languages that we use and who could never have learned them in the natural way that we do?

  10. Word Count

     Can't Write? Can't Draw? Here's Why You Should Doodle.
    Mon Apr 17 00:00:00 EDT 2017
    I've become a pro-doodling zealot after reading the book The Doodle Revolution by Sunni Brown. If you're a writer or a student or a business executive or a... well, anyone, really... you should doodle.
94 95 96 97 98 Displaying 951-960 of 3460 Results