Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles from 2010
We are pleased to present another excerpt from the new anthology entitled, One Word: Contemporary Writers on the Words They Love or Loathe, published by Sarabande Books. The editor, Molly McQuade, asked 66 writers the question, "What one word means the most to you, and why?" Among the essays McQuade has collected is "Interesting," by Jayson Iwen.
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Once again award-winning writer and educator Bob Greenman takes us on a journey through words selected from More Words That Make a Difference, a delightful book illustrating word usage with passages from the Atlantic Monthly.
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As 2010 winds down, word-watchers are reflecting on a year of vuvuzelas and robo-signers, gleeks and mama grizzlies. Let's take a look back at some of the lexical highlights from the past year.
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Last week, President Barack Obama sent Americans running to the dictionary when he called Democrats opposing his compromise on tax cuts "sanctimonious."
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Blog Excerpts
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wordbook
The latest movie installment of C.S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia" is in the theaters, and Jeremy Marshall, a researcher for the Oxford English Dictionary, celebrates by digging into Narnia's fantastic world of dryads, boggles, and orknies. Read Marshall's post on OUPblog here.
Sarah Palin's political opponents made hay out of her gaffe last Wednesday, when she said on Glenn Beck's radio show that "We gotta stand with our North Korean allies," when she meant "South Korean allies." Palin fought back with a Thanksgiving Facebook message that pointed to numerous slips of the tongue by President Obama. I don't find her "North Korean" error particularly remarkable (she was swiftly corrected by Beck, and she didn't confuse North and South Korea elsewhere in her remarks). I was more interested in what she said before that: "We're not having a lot of faith that the White House is going to come out with a strong enough policy to sanction what it is that North Korea is going to do." Was her use of sanction also erroneous?
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What's "cherpumple"? Let naming expert and word-watcher Nancy Friedman define it for you...
Cherpumple: A dessert comprising cherry, pumpkin, and apple pies, each baked inside a layer of cake. The word is a portmanteau of cherry, pumpkin, and apple. Continue reading...Sign up now (it’s free!)
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