Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles from November, 2014
On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Americans kick off the holiday shopping season with a bang. We look back to a Word Routes column by lexicographer Ben Zimmer exploring the origins of the phrase "Black Friday." It is not, as many believe, the day when retailers' balance sheets change from red to black.
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Tasty MorselsGood stuff from Vocabulary.com
What's the Difference Between "thanksgiving" and "Thanksgiving"?
Find meaning in the grammar of the day.
Today is Thanksgiving Day! You are probably in the midst of celebrating with friends and family gathered around a turkey right this very minute. But in case you're not, we invite you to celebrate for a moment here with us by contemplating the difference between Thanksgiving with a capital T and thanksgiving, the word. The difference comes down to simple grammar, but perhaps we can find in the distinction something more?
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Last year for Thanksgiving, I did something gastronomically delicious but linguistically impossible: I dry-brined my turkey. The very word brine implies water. Tons of seafaring stories reference the briny deep as a euphemism for the salty sea. So what could a dry-brine possibly be?
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Let's Talk Turkey: A Word That's Waddled Round the Globe
An excerpt from Dan Jurafsky's "The Language of Food"
Although turkeys were domesticated by Native Americans, turkey itself is not a Native American word. In this excerpt from a new book The Language of Food, linguist and Stanford University professor Dan Jurafsky charts the complicated path the word turkey followed into English, then serves up a slice of etymological pecan pie.
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Recently we announced a powerful new Teacher Dashboard that gives educators a comprehensive look at exactly how their students are doing in their progress toward vocabulary mastery. Now administrators have a dashboard of their own, with the ability to see how Vocabulary.com is helping teachers and students, allowing them to recognize the efforts of their school's top performers.
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Beyond "Maize": Thanksgiving Vocab for Grown-Ups
What some call food-word confusion, others consider a cornucopia of words!
There are many things we can all love about Thanksgiving, but word confusion is not one of them. That's why, as food talk get increasingly hysterical at this time of year, and recipe words blur before our eyes, we bring you clarity. Or, for those of us who find a profusion of new and abundant vocabulary as welcome as the pilgrims found the assistance provided by Native Americans, call it a cornucopia of delight!
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Tasty MorselsGood stuff from Vocabulary.com
"Nice" or "Not Nice": Which are You?
A vocabularian's personality quiz
Before the highly overused nice slips off your tongue one more time, check out some more specific options at your disposal.
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