Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles from 2014
Here's the latest in our series of tips on usage and style from the one and only Grammar Girl, a.k.a. Mignon Fogarty. What's the difference between facetious and sarcastic?
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Blog Excerpts
"Paladin" Versus "Taffeta": The Gender Word War is On
How Gender Predicts What Words You're Likely to Know
Business Insider announced this week the results of a study by the Center for Reading Research on the relationship between gender and word recognition. Are there words more easily recognized by one gender or another?
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Behind the DictionaryLexicographers Talk About Language
"Tradecraft" Infiltrates the Language
How words with seemingly transparent meanings can settle into semantic idiosyncrasy.
Tradecraft, which has been spy jargon since at least the 1960s, has been making its way into more mainstream consciousness recently, as we hear about operations like the search for Osama bin Laden, or about Edward Snowden's training as a spy. It's a good example of how words with seemingly transparent meanings can settle into semantic idiosyncrasy through historical circumstance.
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Tasty MorselsGood stuff from Vocabulary.com
Fermi School Shows "Pizzazz" in Leaderboard Win
Vocabulary learning is key skill for these bilingual students, teachers say
When the fourth through eighth graders at Enrico Fermi School for the Performing Arts in Yonkers, NY swept the Vocabulary.com school leaderboard in May, their entire community stood up and took notice.
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Both are containers, but a sac is for plants and animals, and a sack is for a sandwich. So spiders put their eggs in a sac, and people put their groceries in a sack.
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"What was your latest preneur?"
It's one of the most quoted lines in the 2010 movie The Social Network. The line is proof that -preneur has bid adieu to its entre- associate and become a word part with independent staying power. Continue reading...Dept. of Word Lists
From "Pomposity" to "Bewilderment": World Cup Vocab
The era of dumbing down may be over, but does that leave many of us confused?
Soccer or football? Game or match? Pitch or field? And why would you refer to a shirt as a kit? World Cup vocabulary explained.
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