Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles from February, 2015
Last August, the folks at Oxford Dictionaries published a list of words that they were adding to their dictionaries. Among them was neckbeard, which is listed as "A growth of hair on a man's neck." But this self-describing definition is not why the term was added. More interestingly, the term connotes someone with "poor grooming habits" and who's "socially inept."
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If you've spent time lately in the world of startup brands, as I have, you've almost certainly noticed a conspicuous trend. Maybe the penny dropped as you searched for recipes on Yummly or bought home-delivered meals from Feastly. Perhaps you've skimmed headlines on Reportedly, Collectively, or Newsly. Or you've played games on Scopely, tracked gasoline usage with Fuelly, or researched colleges on Admittedly.
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Tasty MorselsGood stuff from Vocabulary.com
In Yearlong Vocabulary Bowl, Chavez High School Has Eyes on the Prize
So far this school year, students at Chavez High School in Houston, TX have mastered nearly 200,000 words using Vocabulary.com. They're learning words on their computers, their phones, their tablets, at home, on the bus, during lunch and free periods, and during vocabulary binge-sessions in the cafeteria. Their hard work and persistence has taken their school to the top spot in the yearlong Vocabulary Bowl, and local media is paying attention.
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Tips & Tricks
Share a Word From Our Dictionary in a Single Click!
Using the share button a social media message is only a click away
Did you know you can share words from the Vocabulary.com Dictionary on Facebook, Twitter and other social media with a single click? You can. Here's how.
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Vocabulary
The critically lauded film The Imitation Game just won an Oscar for Graham Moore's screenplay, adapted from Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges. Crosswords play an important role in the story of the World War II codebreakers, but it turns out they also mastered the art of the palindrome. Palindromist Magazine editor Mark Saltveit reveals a long-hidden chapter of wordplay history.
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Over the weekend, The New York Times presented an interactive quiz on newly prominent slang terms entitled "Are You On Fleek?" But what does "on fleek" mean, and how did it get to be such a trendy expression, especially on social media? Our resident linguist Neal Whitman investigates.
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In January, I took part in an interesting discussion on Twitter. Washington Post copyeditor Bill Walsh posted a headline: "Hole-in-the-walls: East, west, and downtown, 19 named." He asked, "Would you take your sister-in-laws to such a place?"
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