Topic : Vocabulary

53 54 55 56 57 Displaying 379-385 of 777 Articles

Word Routes

Exploring the pathways of our lexicon

It's Crossword Time Again!
Fri Feb 19 00:00:00 EST 2010
By Ben Zimmer

It's time once again for the cream of the crosswording crop to converge on the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Brooklyn, New York. Last year the nail-biting final round saw Tyler Hinman emerge victorious for the fifth consecutive year (his thrilling first win was captured in the documentary Wordplay). Will Tyler manage to pull off #6, or is it time for a new winner — like, say, last year's breakout star Dan Feyer?  Continue reading...
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Wordshop

Vocab activities for your classroom

Let Freedom Ring!
Thu Feb 18 00:00:00 EST 2010
By Georgia Scurletis

For Black History Month, take a look at some of the speeches that have inspired progress towards racial equality in America. Beyond looking at the historical context of each speech, students can use VocabGrabber to analyze the linguistic patterns in a particular speech to gain insight into what rhetorical devices made those spoken words so memorable.  Continue reading...
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Blog Excerpts

Language War is Over (If You Want It)
Thu Feb 18 00:00:00 EST 2010

Earlier this month on Blog Excerpts we featured Alexandra D'Arcy's OUPblog post, "Ode to a Prescriptivist," which drew a sharp dichotomy between linguistic descriptivism and prescriptivism (personified by D'Arcy and her stern grandmother, respectively). D'Arcy's post inspired Stan Carey, a professional editor from Ireland, to write a typically thoughtful post on his blog, Sentence First.  Continue reading...
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Word Count

Writers Talk About Writing

Grammar Bite: "Compose" vs. "Comprise"
Tue Feb 16 00:00:00 EST 2010
By Erin Brenner

Erin Brenner of Right Touch Editing provides "bite-sized lessons to improve your writing" on her engaging blog The Writing Resource. Here Erin tackles the tricky distinction between compose and comprise.  Continue reading...
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Behind the Dictionary

Lexicographers Talk About Language

"Win-Win" and the Winter Olympics
Fri Feb 12 00:00:00 EST 2010
By Neal Whitman

Just in time for the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics, linguist Neal Whitman has been thinking about a phrase that seems to guarantee victory: win-win situation. What does this "no-lose" proposition really mean?  Continue reading...
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Blog Excerpts

Cheers and Jeers for "Podium"
Fri Feb 12 00:00:00 EST 2010

"Here's one safe prediction for the Winter Olympics," writes Visual Thesaurus executive producer Ben Zimmer in the New York Times Magazine. "Competitors and commentators will use podium as a verb, as in, 'She can definitely podium here today.' And just as predictably, some observers will shudder at the word." Read the rest here.
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Word Routes

Exploring the pathways of our lexicon

SnOMG! It's Snowmageddon 2010
Thu Feb 11 00:00:00 EST 2010
By Ben Zimmer

Over the last few days, America's Eastern seaboard has seen record levels of snow... accompanied by record levels of snow wordplay. There has been a blizzard of "portmanteau words" involving snow, with snowmageddon and snowpocalypse leading the way. On Twitter, the hashtag of choice has been snOMG, compactly joining snow with the online interjection OMG. We haven't seen this much seasonal word-blending since 2008's "summer of the staycation."  Continue reading...
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