Articles about Usage : Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus

Topic : Usage

On July 25, the fourteenth Summer Special Olympics World Games will open in Los Angeles. Over the next seven days, 7,000 athletes will compete in sporting events at venues around the city, supported by 30,000 volunteers and cheered by 500,000 spectators. ESPN will broadcast the opening ceremony. It sounds festive. It sounds inspiring. But what makes it "special"? Continue reading...

Usage, Words, Branding

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White House security has been one of the most reliable sources of comedy for the past several years, with scandal and buffoonery becoming the norm. Finally, the buffoonery has produced something I can use in endless search for tasty euphemisms. Continue reading...

Usage, Words, Fun

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Have you ever struggled to explain a nuclear meltdown caused by an incredibly stupid mistake? You would have been grateful for alternative terms, such as "a core rearrangement caused by an ill-advised learning opportunity." You can find these terms and more in Spinglish: The Definitive Dictionary of Deliberately Deceitful Language. Continue reading...

Usage, Books, Language

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Did that headline peak your interest? Or did it pique it? I'm waiting with baited breath for your answer. Or would that be bated? All of us have a tendency to replace a fossilized word, whose nuances have been lost, with a more standard definition of that word or a different word entirely. Through this process, phrases, like words, can change meaning over time. Continue reading...

Usage, Words, Language

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I love everything about used bookstores—except their negative effect on my wallet. I recently found another wallet-drainer—and a gem of a word book—in Chicago's wonderful Myopic Books: Hash House Lingo: The Slang of Soda Jerks, Short-Order Cooks, Bartenders, Waitresses, Carhops and Other Denizens of Yesterday's Roadside. Continue reading...

Usage, Words, Fun

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Lying is one of those embarrassing things that demands euphemisms. No one wants to say "I lied" or "I fibbed" or "I wrote fan fiction." So when called on the carpet for a lie, people reach into the lexical abyss for euphemisms. Continue reading...

Usage, Words, Fun

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Recently in an online forum for editors, someone balked at then being used as a coordinating conjunction, as in: "I went to high school, then I went to college." Coordinating conjunctions, you'll recall, join two items of equal status: two words of the same parts of speech, two phrases of the same type, or two clauses. Continue reading...

Grammar, Language, Usage

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Topic : Usage

Candlepower

Ad and marketing creatives

What Makes the Special Olympics "Special"?

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Evasive Maneuvers

Euphemisms old and new

Customers of Size? More Like Terms of Twaddle

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Dog Eared

Books we love

"Spinglish": A Smorgasbord of Evasive, Duplicitous Delights

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Word Count

Writers Talk About Writing

Finding Fossilized Words in Phrases Frozen in Time

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Evasive Maneuvers

Euphemisms old and new

Don't Bring Hen Fruit to a Duck Party: Old Diner Euphemisms

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Evasive Maneuvers

Euphemisms old and new

Substantial Informal Activities Due to Malarkey

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Word Count

Writers Talk About Writing

Do This, Then Do That: Coordinating "Then" Usage

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