Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles from 2010
In this Sunday's "On Language" column in the New York Times Magazine, I take on some modern meanings of social and related words like socialize. (Have you been in a meeting where someone has suggested socializing an idea?) We owe much of the recent rise of social-ity to those trendy online terms, social media and social networking. How did we manage to get so social simply by staring into our laptop screens?
Continue reading...
Blog Excerpts
"The Great Recession"?
The Associated Press style guide has given its official imprimatur to "The Great Recession" as a description for the global financial crisis that started in late 2007. Many other news organizations, particularly those in Europe, think that the AP is jumping the gun. Kathlyn Clore of the European Journalism Centre reports here.
Behind the DictionaryLexicographers Talk About Language
Why the "Doughnut Hole" Metaphor is Inside Out
The recent passage of health care legislation in the U.S. Congress has got linguist Neal Whitman ruminating over a reform-related metaphor that doesn't make much sense when you stop to think about it.
Continue reading...
These childhood memories employ a number of words that appear in my book More Words That Make a Difference, with illustrative sentences from the Atlantic Monthly.
Continue reading...
Stan Carey, a professional editor from Ireland, writes entertainingly about the English language on his blog Sentence First. Here Stan enlightens us about an Irish word borrowed into English, galore.
Continue reading...
It's been a whirlwind week since the official announcement that I would be taking over the "On Language" column in the New York Times Magazine, the old stomping grounds of the late lamented Language Maven, William Safire. I'm grateful for all of the warm messages of congratulation I've received, and I also remain cognizant that in taking over Safire's column, I have extremely big shoes to fill.
Continue reading...
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 the common misuse of the word misnomer.
Continue reading...
Sign up now (it’s free!)
Whether you’re a teacher or a learner,
Vocabulary.com can put you or your class
on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.