Have you noticed that curators, once restricted to institutions like museums and art galleries, are now running rampant? Research librarian Stan Friedman investigates curator-mania, and discovers that people are finding comfort in an old, trusted term. Continue reading...
This is a strange expression, often heard in the form: “You’ll be laughing on the other side of your face [when X happens].” But what does it mean and where does it come from? Continue reading...
A dictionary definition is a place to start (or end); it cannot capture a word's essence or connotation. Students need to learn that words — like people — have personalities. Some get along with everybody. Some only get along with other select words. Some are comfortable everywhere, while some have special hangouts or niches. Continue reading...
Via Twitter, theatre director Jen Bender posed a question that had recently come up in conversation: "A married man's lover is his mistress. What's the name for a woman's illicit lover?" Searching for an answer to that question points to the many gender-related asymmetries in English. Continue reading...
What does a Hanseatic city have to do with America's most popular sandwich? How is the city of Mozart related to a ballpark favorite? And how did the names of these cities end up as common and productive English words? It's all because of Americans' love for an ethnic food that's so much a part of our diet that we might not even realize it's ethnic: namely, German cuisine. Continue reading...
With Baz Luhrmann's movie adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby arriving in theaters, this week has been full of Gatsby talk. Online commentators have been writing about words coined or popularized by Fitzgerald, the slang of the 1920s "flapper" era, and even the name Gatsby itself. Continue reading...
In the latest quarterly update to the Oxford English Dictionary, one entry in particular has attracted attention: tweet, previously defined only as the chirping of birds, has been expanded to refer to 140-character Twitter updates as well. The OED loosened its usual "ten year rule" to let this newcomer in. Continue reading...
I've written columns culled from the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) before, but it wasn't easy. I always had to thumb through the pages like a caveman. No more! Now, finally, DARE is available digitally, allowing this deep well of regional English to be searched easily. This is a bonanza for writers and word nerds everywhere, so get a subscription or take your library hostage until it does so. Continue reading...
We're dusting off the piano in the Language Lounge this month and exploring
the world of musical directions. No matter if your keyboard skills are not
up to par: for this interlude the only keyboard you need to use is the QWERTY
one connected to your computer, and the Visual Thesaurus. Continue reading...
This month we're investigating a chameleon-like feature of language called the loan translation, or if you prefer, the calque. No passport required, but be prepared to mingle with some French and Spanish ancestors. Continue reading...