Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles from November, 2012
Blog Excerpts
Back in Black: On the Origins of "Black Friday"
"Black" doesn't refer to retailers' books
On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Americans kick off the holiday shopping season with a bang. In his Word Routes column last year, lexicographer Ben Zimmer explored the origins of the phrase "Black Friday." It is not, as many believe, the day when retailers' balance sheets change from red to black.
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We're pleased to present another excerpt from Constance Hale's entertaining new book, Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing. Here she focuses on phrasal verbs, "the verbal combos that join an action word with a tiny preposition or particle to make a whole new meaning."
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Ten Words from Today's NY Times - November 21, 2012
Ten Words from Today's NY Times - November 21, 2012
Learn Ten Words from Today's Times - November 21, 2012.
Then see "Vocabulary Begets Vocabulary: The More You Know, the More You Learn" to understand why learning these words will help you absorb even more as you read.
Noted by A.O. Scott for its "crowd-pleasing sincerity and...sheer visual grandeur," the film Life of Pi, based on the novel by Yann Martel and directed by Ang Lee, opens Wednesday in 3D. Before seeing the film, add a third dimension to your own knowledge of the story by learning Life of Pi Vocabulary Lists.
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Tasty MorselsGood stuff from Vocabulary.com
List of the Week: Quiz Yourself on Thanksgiving Words
List of the Week: Quiz Yourself on Thanksgiving Words
From pumpkin pie to Plymouth Rock, this classic Thanksgiving Vocabulary List separates the novitiate from the veteran. See how you stack up!
If recipe suggestions pulled from several major US newspapers and Epicurious.com are to be believed, Thanksgiving remains a celebration of abundance. But unless you're someone who trucks in red fife, uses remoulade interchangeably with mayo, and refers to a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake as semifreddo, you might find the holiday to be more about an abundance of new words as much as it's about an abundance of food.
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Last February, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke warned the House of Representatives that "under current law, on January 1st, 2013, there is going to be a massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases." Now, with the election over, President Obama and the lame-duck Congress are trying to figure out a way to avoid the "fiscal cliff." But where did the phrase come from? And is the cliff metaphor really so apt?
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