Last night, the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses held its fifth annual Spelling Bee in support of its non-profit efforts to help out independent literary publishers. The CLMP always attracts an all-star cast of spellers from the New York book world. This time around, the Visual Thesaurus joined forces with the CLMP Bee, supplying the words to stump the cream of the literary crop.
Continue reading...
Today's question for Mailbag Friday comes from our own puzzlemaster, Brendan Emmett Quigley, who's been watching a lot of football. "What gives with all these sportscasters saying 'Team A out-physicaled Team B'? Physical, last time I checked, is an adjective and not a verb, right?"
Brendan's question reminds me of a saying attributed to the great philosopher Calvin (the one from "Calvin and Hobbes," of course): "Verbing weirds language." Continue reading...It's time once again for Mailbag Friday! Marc T. of New York, NY writes: "John McCain recently said that he put his campaign on hold to work on the Senate bailout package because 'it's not my style to simply phone it in.' Why do we talk about doing something in a lackluster or perfunctory way as phoning it in? Who originally did the phoning in, anyway?"
The history of American slang is often illuminating, and this is no exception: tracing the origins of this expression tells an intriguing story about the intersection of the technological and the theatrical. 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.