This week's worksheet asks students to examine the meanings of some familiar words beginning with the prefix tele- and to infer the meaning of its ancient Greek origin.  Continue reading...

Yesterday, the east coast of the United States was struck by a 5.8-magnitude earthquake — or, as it was frequently described in news accounts, a "temblor." Fortunately, the damage caused by the quake was limited, so instead we can contemplate the question: what the heck is a temblor? Or should the word be tremblor?  Continue reading...

Mike Pope, a technical editor at Microsoft, writes:

My name — Pope — is surprisingly easy to mishear. "Polk?" people ask. "Hope?" This is particularly true over the telephone. Even spelling it out doesn't help — P-O-P-E — and I find myself exaggerating the aspiration on those plosives.  Continue reading...

The latest edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (not to be confused with the giant OED itself) has announced some of the latest words to make the cut. Among them are jeggings, mankini, retweet, sexting, and woot. Don't know what these words mean? Check out the announcement of the new words on OUPblog, and read more about the century-old dictionary here.

When I go on radio shows to talk about English language usage, talk inevitably turns to words and phrases that people find annoying. (The topic is sure to light up the call-in lines.) Among the top peeves I hear about are three expressions that get used in an inverted fashion: literally used non-literally to emphasize a figure of speech, irregardless used to mean regardless, and could care less used to mean couldn't care less. What's with all the flip-flopping?  Continue reading...

All this week, politicians and pundits have been busy reacting to Standard & Poor's downgrade of the U.S. debt rating from AAA to AA+, the first such credit downgrade in American history. The word downgrade itself has taken on powerful significance, to the point that it has vaulted into contention for Word of the Year.  Continue reading...