Topic : Language

23 24 25 26 27 Displaying 169-175 of 960 Articles

Word Count

Writers Talk About Writing

The Palindrome Game of the Enigma Codebreakers
February 24, 2015

The critically lauded film The Imitation Game just won an Oscar for Graham Moore's screenplay, adapted from Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges. Crosswords play an important role in the story of the World War II codebreakers, but it turns out they also mastered the art of the palindrome. Palindromist Magazine editor Mark Saltveit reveals a long-hidden chapter of wordplay history.  Continue reading...
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Word Count

Writers Talk About Writing

Tricky Plurals Inspire Some Grammatical Back-and-Forths
February 20, 2015
By Erin Brenner

In January, I took part in an interesting discussion on Twitter. Washington Post copyeditor Bill Walsh posted a headline: "Hole-in-the-walls: East, west, and downtown, 19 named." He asked, "Would you take your sister-in-laws to such a place?"  Continue reading...
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Word Count

Writers Talk About Writing

The Sound of Writing
February 11, 2015
By Michael Lydon

The dog ate the food. That's writing at its plainest. Each word has a definite, well-known meaning, the signifiers point to their signifieds just like they're supposed to. If we know how to read, we have no trouble seeing Fido happily munching his kibble.  Continue reading...
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Language Lounge

A Monthly Column for Word Lovers

Light Up: A Linguistic Illumination
February 2, 2015
By Orin Hargraves

2015 is the International Year of Light. The Language Lounge will observe the solemnity of the occasion in a more low-tech way, by taking up the idea of light in language. It's one of the most productive concepts for metaphor in English.  Continue reading...
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Blog Excerpts

The Future of Dictionaries: A HuffPost Live Chat
January 21, 2015

HuffPost Live hosted a chat about the uncertain future of dictionaries in the digital era. Among the panelists was our own Ben Zimmer, who talked about how the move away from the printed page opens up exciting new possibilities for what a dictionary can do.  Continue reading...
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Dept. of Word Lists

Wayne State Word Warriors to the Rescue!
January 20, 2015

Six years running, the logophiles at Wayne State University, a.k.a. the Wayne State Word Warriors, have curated a crowd-sourced list of rare words that "deserve a bit more love." These are words that used to be commonly known and are still useful, but have started to drop out of the English lexicon. Wayne State Warriors' mission? To bring them back.  Continue reading...
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Word Routes

Exploring the pathways of our lexicon

A Far-Fetched Etymology That Seems a Little Cockamamie
January 13, 2015
By Ben Zimmer

Etymology can take some peculiar turns as a word criss-crosses different cultures. For the latest installment of Slate's Lexicon Valley podcast, I take the hosts along on the journey of the word cockamamie, which might seem stranger than fiction.  Continue reading...
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