Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles from April, 2014
Blog Excerpts
"Staycation," "Bleisure," and Other Made-Up Travel Words
Is the travel industry particularly susceptible to making up words like "bleisure" (combining "business" and "leisure") and "staycation" (for a stay-at-home vacation)? Associated Press travel reporter Beth J. Harpaz investigates — with help from our own Ben Zimmer, who says that such neologisms "come in handy in a business sector where there's often a need to come up with clever marketing spin." Read the AP article here.
Dept. of Word Lists
"Native Son" Vocabulary: Wright's Unerring Gaze
"Native Son" Vocabulary: Wright's Unerring Gaze
Although the hero of Richard Wright's classic tale of the African American experience has a hard time coming up with words, Wright never falters.
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Topics:
Vocabulary
Under the HoodThe science of vocabulary building
What Does It Mean To "Own" Your Words?
And how Vocabulary.com can help
There's a difference between wearing a style and owning it. For learners of English and even those born into it, using a word has a lot to do with feeling that it "belongs to me."
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Vocabulary Shout-Out
"Dirigible" Plums: Some Harry Potter Vocab Isn't Rowling-Made
Beyond its own glossary, the series is a treasure trove of sophisticated, SAT-worthy vocabulary
In spite of the fact that the Harry Potter series is often embarked on by children in the youngest elementary school grades, the series is a treasure trove of sophisticated, SAT-worthy vocabulary. Dirigible as it appears in the Potterverse, is a word you're likely not soon to forget.
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Blog Excerpts
Scrabble Showdown: "Zen" Versus... "Geocache"?
In Hasbro's "Scrabble Word Showdown," fans of the game have been narrowing down candidates for a new word to include the game's soon-to-be-revised official dictionary. Two finalists are left standing: zen (which many Scrabblers have been requesting), and... geocache, the recipient of a big get-out-the-vote effort by fans of the high-tech treasure hunt known as "geocaching." See the latest from Hasbro here, and read Caitlin Dewey's take in the Washington Post here. Update: And the winner is... geocache!
Announcements
Bloomberg TV's Pimm Fox Takes the Vocabulary.com Challenge
Executive Producer Ben Zimmer quizzes Pimm on some tricky words
In a segment that aired last night on Bloomberg TV, Vocabulary.com executive producer and lexicographer Ben Zimmer appeared on Pimm Fox's "Taking Stock" on Bloomberg TV, describing the adaptive learning power of Vocabulary.com and the Vocabulary.com App, and quizzing Pimm on some of the some super-challenging vocabulary players with advanced vocabularies might encounter.
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Vocabulary.com News
When I was studying Spanish and had gotten to the point where our assignments consisted of reading real books, I kept a well-thumbed dictionary on my desk. Every paragraph seemed to contain several words that I had to look up, which was tedious and slow. Our wise teacher kept telling us that we didn't need to do that—you don't actually have to know what every word means to understand the text.
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