Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles from 2009
Tips & Tricks
Genre Study: Resources for Teaching Historical Fiction (High School)
Prep Students for Close Reading with Curated Vocabulary Lists
Explore our comprehensive selection of ready-made curriculum resources and learn simple, effective ways to create engaging activities that boost your students' comprehension.
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Tips & Tricks
Genre Study: Resources for Teaching Historical Fiction (Middle Grades)
Prep Students for Close Reading with Curated Vocabulary Lists
Explore our comprehensive selection of ready-made curriculum resources and learn simple, effective ways to create engaging activities that boost your students' comprehension.
Continue reading...
We welcome back linguist Neal Whitman, who has noticed that many educators are fond of "choice" language, as in "He made good choices." Neal plumbs the history of this usage and talks to teachers and administrators about how the words "choose" and "choice" have shifted in recent years.
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Blog Excerpts
Gift Words
Just in time for the holidays, Visual Thesaurus contributor Mark Peters has rounded up a selection of gift-related words and phrases for his latest "Wordtastic" column in Good Magazine — covering everything from Seinfeldian "regifting" to "shopper's block." Read it here.
Is there any drink more seasonal than eggnog, that Yuletide mixture of sweetened milk, beaten eggs, and (at least traditionally) liquor? As we head into the peak time for eggnog consumption, let's put aside our mugs and stop to consider where the word eggnog actually comes from.
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Jan Freeman, language columnist for the Boston Globe, has published a fascinating new book: an expanded edition of Write It Right, Ambrose Bierce's 1909 volume on English usage, "deciphered, appraised, and annotated for 21st-century readers." We caught up with Jan to ask how Bierce's century-old language peeves have held up, and what his work tells us about current usage struggles.
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Wendalyn Nichols, editor of the Copyediting newsletter, offers useful tips to copy editors and anyone else who prizes clear and orderly writing. Here she looks at why a seemingly simple rule of English, whether to use a or an as an indefinite article, can cause confusion.
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