Vocabulary.com Blog Contributor
Orin Hargraves
Orin Hargraves is an independent lexicographer and contributor to numerous dictionaries published in the US, the UK, and Europe. He is also the author of Mighty Fine Words and Smashing Expressions (Oxford), the definitive guide to British and American differences, and Slang Rules! (Merriam-Webster), a practical guide for English learners. In addition to writing the Language Lounge column, Orin also writes for the Macmillan Dictionary Blog. Click here to visit his website.
We're dusting off the piano in the Language Lounge this month and exploring
the world of musical directions. No matter if your keyboard skills are not
up to par: for this interlude the only keyboard you need to use is the QWERTY
one connected to your computer, and the Visual Thesaurus.
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Can a word's inner life be revealed by the company it keeps? We set off this
month to find out just that, examining April through the prism of the Visual
Thesaurus and some other word investigation tools we keep in that big
sideboard over against the wall of the Language Lounge.
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Monologue and soliloquy mean about the same thing but you wouldn't know it by looking at the words, and you might not even guess that they had anything to do with speech. It's all because English has always been a compulsive borrower. That's the topic we explore this month in the Language Lounge.
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"Reading the dictionary" sounds like a punishment
to most people, or an activity undertaken only by the hopelessly bored or
academically inclined. It is, however, an activity that word lovers indulge in
unashamedly from time to time.
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