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To fully understand unfolding stories in the news, learn ten key words taken from this week's New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post coverage with A Polar "Vortex" and a "Mercurial" Basketball Star: Ten Words in the News You Need to Know. Continue reading...

World Wide Words is just that: Everything and anything about the English language, compiled by lexicographer Michael Quinion. From a well-stocked library in the little British market town of Thornbury, Michael writes a weekly newsletter read by some 50,000 people around the world. It's a veritable salmagundi of etymology, history, weird words, obsolete words, grammar and answers to readers' questions. Hey, where else can you learn about "the hairy antecedents of 'rebarbative?'" Michael's also a freelance contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary and an accomplished author. His latest book, just released, is called Gallimaufry, about words that have vanished from the English language. We had a rather delightful conversation with Michael:

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Last year, Season 2 of the popular British TV series "Downton Abbey" yielded a bumper crop of linguistic anachronisms. In Season 3, now airing stateside on PBS, the out-of-place language has continued. There was a particularly glaring anachronism in the most recently aired episode: "steep learning curve." Continue reading...

Stop getting lost among Dickensian thickets as you traipse behind Ebenezer Scrooge on his Christmas Eve journey. Instead give yourself the gift of word learning. Continue reading...

Common Sense Media, the well-regarded independent site that reviews media for children, recently evaluated Vocabulary.com, and determined that the site's "a great learning resource" that's "fun," "easy to use," and "well designed." The review focused primarily on Vocabulary.com's appropriateness for children, concluding that it works best for kids age 13 and up. Read the full rating here. Continue reading...

Colorado educators came out on a frigid February night to enjoy food, drinks, and wordy fun at the first stop on our Vocabulary.com Road Trip. Teachers got fired up playing games and learning about Vocabulary.com, and our team got fired up being in a room full of enthusiastic educators. Next Road Trip stop: Atlanta on March 2! Continue reading...

It's back to school, and that means it's time for dictionaries to trot out their annual lists of new words. Dictionary-maker Merriam-Webster recently released a list of 150 words just added to its new Collegiate Dictionary for 2011, including cougar, a middle-aged woman seeking a romantic relationship with a younger man, boomerang child, a young adult who returns to live at home for financial reasons, and social media -- if you don't know what that means, then you're still living in the last century. Continue reading...

There's one thing we know for sure: teachers in Atlanta understand the importance of combining word learning with a little fun. The Vocabulary.com Road Trip's Peach State event drew educators from Atlanta Public Schools and neighboring counties: Cobb, Coweta, Dekalb, and Fulton. Next stop: Houston on March 23! Continue reading...

The lexicon of motherhood isn't always kind. We mock mom jeans and mommyblogs. Headlines recently covered the U.S. dropping the so-called "mother of all bombs," which is a bizarre turn of phrase, given that mothers tend to create and nurture life rather than wipe it out. Here's an appreciative look at some of the top verbs of motherhood. Continue reading...