Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles from March, 2011
A television commercial for the laundry detergent Gain is getting under the skin of the grammatically minded. The commercial shows a man getting dressed and smelling his newly laundered shirt, as the announcer says, "Bill's mornings have never been gooder thanks to something amazing we've added to Gain." That one little word, gooder, has set off a storm of protests — which may be exactly what Procter & Gamble, the makers of Gain, are looking for.
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The editors of The Associated Press Stylebook recently announced some changes to the Bible of copy editors. Among their pronouncements: e-mail would lose its hyphen, and cell phone would lose its space. Merrill Perlman, who writes the "Language Corner" column for Columbia Journalism Review, gives us the full rundown.
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The latest update to the Oxford English Dictionary has attracted a flurry of media interest, though much of the coverage has been misleading or downright inaccurate. We take a look at some of the more reasoned reactions to the inclusion of such new items as OMG, LOL, and heart (as a transitive verb, not as a symbol).
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When the American Dialect Society selected app as the 2010 Word of the Year, it was a nod to the tech term's sudden ubiquity over the past year or two. And now it's more contested than ever with Apple locked in litigation with two rivals, Microsoft and Amazon, in an attempt to hold on to a trademark for app store. How did we get to the point where, as the Apple slogan goes, "there's an app for that" (regardless of whose store you buy it from)?
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Today, March 23, 2011, is the first annual OK Day, celebrating America's greatest word (or expression?) and most successful export.
It's not the first birthday of OK, of course. OK was born 172 years ago, in the Boston Morning Post of March 23, 1839. But it's the first celebration.
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Word RoutesExploring the pathways of our lexicon
Crossword Tournament 2011: Another Win for "Steely" Dan
Another year of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is in the books, and Dan Feyer has solidified his place as the seemingly unbeatable king of the crossword world. Puzzlemaster Brendan Emmett Quigley joins us again with his wrap-up of the action from Brooklyn.
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Live from Brooklyn, puzzlemaster Brendan Emmett Quigley is providing exclusive commentary from the 2011 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Brendan's got the scoop on all the action at the end of the first day of competition.
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