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.
The great secret of success in anything is to get a hearing. Half the object is gained when the audience is assembled.Now that you're all here: it seems a suitable time to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of P. T. Barnum — a name that you probably don't associate with language in a particular way. Continue reading...
—Phineas T. Barnum
In the Language Lounge, we raise a toast to words that are celebrating their golden jubilee, having made their first appearance in print a half century ago, in the heady days of 1960.
Continue reading...
This month in the Language Lounge, we take a look at an underappreciated grammatical category: submodifiers. We hope that by shining the spotlight briefly on the term, we might win over a few converts, as well as alert readers to the nuances of the delightful class of words so designated.
Continue reading...
Would you still purchase a "3-piece European-style outdoor bistro set" if you had to pay a "European-style value-added-tax" on it? This month in the Lounge we look at the changing fortunes of all things European.
Continue reading...
We rarely shine the spotlight on a single word in the Lounge but this month we have a special honoree: the noun patch. We've heard a couple of startling uses of patch recently and it got us thinking about what a great word it is, and how well it exemplifies the genius of language and the genius of English.
Continue reading...
You're right on the money if you guess that this month's Lounge has something to do with nouns. Specifically, we've been digging up data on these very three nouns — person, place, thing — as a result of hearing a news snippet on the radio a few weeks ago, when a speaker characterized a situation as "a Kumbaya thing." Huh? What exactly is a Kumbaya thing?
Continue reading...
When did shall go out of fashion as the first person marker for the future tense? Or was it ever in fashion? This month in the Lounge we look at the career of English's most mismanaged modal.
Continue reading...
Sign up now (it’s free!)
Whether you’re a teacher or a learner,
Vocabulary.com can put you or your class
on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.