Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles from February, 2016
Evasive ManeuversEuphemisms old and new
Clean Eating, Horse Cookies, and Other New York Values
Another roundup of euphemisms, including one from the presidential debates.
As most word-watchers predicted, the American Dialect Society picked Netflix and chill as 2015's Most Euphemistic term. It was an obvious and strong choice, even though it makes me want to Netflix and take my own life at this point.
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Both words relate to teaching, but didactic teaches a lesson and pedantic just shows off the facts.
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If you're pragmatic, you're practical. You're living in the real world, wearing comfortable shoes. If you're dogmatic, you follow the rules. You're living in the world you want, and acting a little stuck up about it.
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They're different, but when these words are said out loud it's hard to tell them apart. A parody is a silly spoof and parity is equality, and that's no joke.
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These two personality types are opposites — introverts focus inward, into their own thoughts, and extroverts focus outward, into the world. But don't get too excited; most people are a little bit of both.
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Language LoungeA Monthly Column for Word Lovers
Whether You Can Make Words Mean So Many Things
Some deep thoughts on picking Words of the Year.
A time-honored ritual around the world at year's end is to nominate Words of the Year, originally inspired by TIME magazine's Person of the Year. But words can be much more different from each other than people are. People of the Year are normally distinguished by their great influence. Words of the Year bear myriad relationships to the things they represent and because of this, the ways in which they distinguish themselves are extremely divergent.
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Tasty MorselsGood stuff from Vocabulary.com
Congrats to Lanier Middle School, December Vocabulary Bowl Champs!
Besting neighbor and Vocab Bowl frontrunner Chavez High, the "Purple Pups" mastered more than 30,000 words.
Lanier Middle School in Houston, TX celebrated their December win of the Vocabulary Bowl national leaderboard with a banner dedication ceremony. The ceremony included medals to the top performing five students, certificates for teachers, student speeches, raucous applause and cheering, and a feeling of excitement and victory all around.
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