Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles from July, 2014
Mignon Fogarty, better known as her alter ego Grammar Girl, has been sharing a series of short tips on usage and style. In her latest installment, she explains why the plural of the word ox is oxen instead of oxes.
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Tasty MorselsGood stuff from Vocabulary.com
You're Never Too Young for Palindromes!
Word Play Lays the Foundation for Strong Language Skills
It's summer reading season, a great time for vocabulary growth. One summer reading option, Carol Weston's Ava and Pip, a novel for young readers, takes engagement with words to a new level, introducing the concept of words as toys to be taken apart and shaken around before being put back together.
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When you play Vocabulary.com, you'll see a wide variety of question types quizzing you on the meanings of words. But so far, the questions have been entirely text-based, relying on definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and example sentences. Today we are pleased to announce a brand-new type of question that takes advantage of the visual potential of vocabulary learning.
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When you visit your bank's website or enter a credit-card number, you've probably noticed that in the browser's address box, the URL begins with https. The "S" stands for "secure," and the security technology your browser uses for that "S" represents one of the great inventions in the history of secrets. In this piece I'll walk you through some of the terms of that rich field.
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One of the students in my Fiction Writing Workshop told a classmate to take a red pen and cross out the multitude of adverbs he had strewn throughout his story. The rest of the class nodded their heads in agreement. But just before I could move us on to the next item on the agenda, the author asked the young woman who'd spoken up, "But why? Why can't I use adverbs?"
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Weird Al's "Word Crimes" Takes on Language Peeves
Most entertaining grammar video since School House Rock
Weird Al Yankovic's "Word Crimes" video transforms Robin Thicke's scandalous "Blurred Lines" into a prescriptivist grammarian's screed. We think it's brilliant and are happy to see it getting much play in the language-loving community this week.
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Blog Excerpts
The Return of Lexicon Valley
Lexicon Valley, Slate's podcast for language lovers, has just returned after an extended hiatus. First up is an interview with Columbia University professor John McWhorter about his new book The Language Hoax. Listen to the podcast here, and also check out Mark Peters' review of McWhorter's book here. And stay tuned for news about our own Ben Zimmer joining forces with the Lexicon Valley podcasters!
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