Explore books written by and about people of Hispanic heritage, each paired with a vocabulary list to support reading comprehension. Continue reading...
Here's a little quiz to test your knowledge of color names. Can you identify where on the spectrum these colors — all of them well documented, some of them brand-specific — are located? 1. Inch Worm, 2. Dead Spaniard, 3. Isabella, 4. I'm Not Really a Waitress, 5. Synergy. Continue reading...
The persistent glitchiness of HealthCare.gov, the website implementing the Affordable Care Act, has given us much time to ponder that peculiar little word, glitch. As it happens, some new research on the word brings its origin, most likely from Yiddish, into a sharper perspective. Continue reading...
The award-winning technology powering Vocabulary.com is now available as an app!
Already played by millions online, the uniquely powerful word-learning system can now be enjoyed on mobile devices and tablets. The Vocabulary.com app provides personalized word learning on a big data scale. Continue reading...
One of the benefits of Vocabulary.com is how quickly teachers can set up classes and get students learning words through our game. But now, using a handy Classroom Starter Kit, we're hoping teachers will first review best practices and some of the game's in and outs as they get started using the game. Continue reading...
The award-winning technology powering Vocabulary.com is now available as an app for Android devices!
Already played by millions online, the uniquely powerful word-learning system can now be enjoyed on mobile devices and tablets. The Vocabulary.com app provides personalized word learning on a big data scale. Continue reading...
Explore dozens of titles recommended for a wide range of readers, each paired with curated vocab lists, adaptive activities, and self-grading assessments. Continue reading...
Hot dog. This all-American food term has long been shrouded in mystery, with many competing theories for its origin. But new research points to intriguing early evidence from an unexpected source, in the city of Paterson in New Jersey. Most intriguing of all, the original "hot dog man" may have been a Jamaican-born, German-speaking former circus strong man who plied his wares in Paterson in the late nineteenth century. Continue reading...
In the Sunday Review section of the New York Times, I took a look at how forensic linguists try to determine the author of an e-mail by picking up on subtle clues of style and grammar. This is very much in the news, thanks to a lawsuit filed against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg by one Paul Ceglia, who claims that Zuckerberg promised him half of Facebook's holdings, as proven by e-mail exchanges he says they had. Did Zuckerberg actually write the e-mails? Call the language detectives. Continue reading...