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Articles from 2011
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How a Carpenter Set a Scrabble Record (Or Did He?)
A Scrabble record was broken unexpectedly and led to contention among Scrabblers.
Ten years ago, Stefan Fatsis published the book Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players. Since then, Scrabble has become even more competitive, thanks in part to the publicity from Word Freak. Fatsis has just released a tenth anniversary edition, with an afterword on the last decade's developments. Here we present an excerpt from the afterword about an astounding match that "rocked the Scrabble world."
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Behind the DictionaryLexicographers Talk About Language
The Linguistic Impact of 9/11? "9/11" Itself
Ten years later, "9/11" has become firmly entrenched in our lexicon.
The terrorist attacks on 9/11 happened ten years ago, and although everybody remembers what they were doing at that flashbulb moment, and many aspects of our lives were changed by those attacks, from traveling to shopping to going online, one thing stands out: the only significant impact that 9/11 has had on the English language is 9/11 itself.
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Word RoutesExploring the pathways of our lexicon
Taking Issue with "Ground Zero"
The argument for saying good-bye to a potent 9/11-related phrase, ten years on.
In a speech on Tuesday anticipating the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that it was time to retire the name "Ground Zero" when referring to the World Trade Center site. "We will never forget the devastation of the area that came to be known as 'Ground Zero,'" Bloomberg said. "But the time has come to call those 16 acres what they are: The World Trade Center and the National September 11th Memorial and Museum." That's quite a mouthful.
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Behind the DictionaryLexicographers Talk About Language
Payback Time
"Revenge" and "vengeance" are popular words in movie titles nowadays.
The movies have me in a venge-ful mood these days. Among the surfeit of superhero movies this summer there was Captain America: The First Avenger. This movie, along with Thor and last summer's Iron Man 2, is a prelude to next summer's The Avengers, showcasing the Marvel superhero team that features these characters.
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Word CountWriters Talk About Writing
Oral History: Of Spoken and Written Words
Why do writers increasingly use "verbal" instead of "oral" these days?
Merrill Perlman considers why writers avoid the word "oral" and use "verbal" instead.
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If we divide up the short list of English parts of speech according to status, adjectives are at the top of the B-list. The elites, nouns and verbs, seem to get everyone's attention because without them, sentences wouldn't have a job.
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Yesterday we heard from University of Illinois English professor Dennis Baron on the announcement of new words added to Merriam-Webster's dictionary. Here is another perspective, from Baltimore Sun copy editor John E. McIntyre, who argues that journalists reporting on new words often misconstrue the purpose of dictionaries.
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