Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles from 2014
Vocabulary Shout-Out
Relearning the Olympics-Friendly "Quadrennium" Every Four Years
Turns out, that's not enough for us to remember it.
Meditating on the contrast between the "vintage" men's downhill races and the newer, funky-vocabulary-intensive snowboard halfpipe and slopestyle events, New York Times writer Christopher Clarey used a fairly funky piece of vocabulary himself: quadrennium
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Topics:
Vocabulary
Dept. of Word Lists
A Quick Current Events Vocab Quiz: "Bemuse"/"Amuse" + "Integrity" in Numbers
Words to learn from state dinners, Olympic ties, and Beohner's jokes
As President François Hollande's solo appearance at a lavish State dinner challenges protocol experts, Olympian skiers tie for the gold amid abundant sunshine, and, after a night of mulling, House Speaker John A. Boehner abandons of another debt-ceiling debate, we present this week's news via a Quick Vocab Quiz!
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Topics:
Vocabulary
Behind the DictionaryLexicographers Talk About Language
Snownados in Hothlanta: The World of Weather Blends
In just about every city, people repeat variations of the saying, "If you don't like the weather, wait an hour." And for good reason. Weather is an ever-changing — and, on our stressed-out globe — increasingly extreme phenomenon. Weather never stops: it just keeps shifting and mutating into something else. That sounds like another natural phenomenon I know: language.
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Blog Excerpts
Remembering the "Gear" Language of The Beatles
When the Beatles invaded America 50 years ago, it wasn't just their music and hairstyle that struck Americans as novel, but their Liverpudlian language as well. In his latest column for the Wall Street Journal, Ben Zimmer looks at how words like "gear" and "fab" emerged out of the Liverpool dialect known as Scouse. Read the column here.
With the 2014 Sochi Olympics well underway, and gimme vocabulary like heat, final, champion, medal, and competition rolling readily off your tongue, it's time to take your Olympics vocabulary learning to the next level.
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Topics:
Vocabulary
Under the HoodThe science of vocabulary building
Six Reasons Why Current Events are Great for Vocab
It goes way past sounding smarter at the water cooler
You don't have to be a news junkie to get addicted to the weekly Quick Current Events Vocab Quiz on Vocabulary.com. Here are six good reasons to make them a regular part of your vocabulary-learning practice.
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Under the HoodThe science of vocabulary building
Sisyphean in a Good Way: Vocab Learning by the Numbers
New OED Chief gives perspective on the enormity of the word learning task
Learning words on Vocabulary.com? Oxford English Dictionary new chief editor Michael Proffitt brings perspective to the sheer enormity of the task in a recent video interview with Christiane Amanpour.
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