What's a dingenuity? It's "A dinner made from the most random of ingredients." And a Snaab? That's "A snob who is obsessed with his Saab," of course. Read more hilariously inventive blends on A Daily Portmanteau.
"Double zeroes"? "Goose eggs"? "Diddly-squats"? Visual Thesaurus contributor Mark Peters considers the tricky question of what we should call the current decade in his latest column for Good Magazine.
If you enjoy reading Visual Thesaurus editor Ben Zimmer's Word Routes column, you'll want to check out his appearance on Bloggingheads. Ben discusses many past Word Routes topics, from Ms. to jazz to Cronkiters, with his brother, science writer Carl Zimmer.
Fascinated by amalgamations like "green behind the ears"? How about "a wrench in the ointment" or "frothing at the bit"? Check out more of these idiom blends at Conflations: "Idiom conflation is a poetic art with a purpose."
Last Sunday, Visual Thesaurus executive producer Ben Zimmer filled in for William Safire's "On Language" column in the New York Times Magazine, writing all about the word fail in its current use as a noun and interjection. Hear Ben talk more about the success of fail in an interview on the NPR show Future Tense.
For his debunking of the myth that Swedish and Dutch news anchors are called "Cronkiters," Visual Thesaurus executive producer Ben Zimmer was named "second best person in the world" on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show "Countdown." Watch the video here!
In his latest Word Routes column, Visual Thesaurus editor Ben Zimmer looked into an anecdote widely reported in the obituaries of Walter Cronkite: that in Sweden (or Holland) news anchors are known as "Cronkiters" (or "Kronkiters"). You can hear Ben talk more about the "Cronkiters" legend on the NPR program "On The Media," airing this weekend. Check your local radio listings for air times, or listen online here.