This month we open the kimono for lounge visitors and reveal why Samuel Johnson, all those many years ago, characterized lexicographers as harmless drudges. Continue reading...
As in pastmonths, we've asked writer and educator Bob Greenman to pick some piquant words from More Words That Make a Difference, a delightful book illustrating word usage with passages from the Atlantic Monthly. Here Bob focuses on a "cousins club" of words that eviscerate the empty verbiage of others. Rest assured that Bob provides us with neither blather nor piffle. Continue reading...
After spending more than 180 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, Lauren Hillenbrand's Unbroken reached film going audiences this week through a new movie directed by Angelina Jolie. After marveling at the story of resilience and heroism, learn the vocabulary Hillenbrand employed to tell the tale via five Vocabulary Lists: Continue reading...
Last night, the five Democratic candidates for president squared off in the first of their televised debates, moderated by CNN's Anderson Cooper. Frontrunner Hillary Clinton and her four challengers, Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, Jim Webb, and Lincoln Chafee, stated their cases to primary voters, and their rhetoric was crystallized in the vocabulary items they used. But what were their significant "vocabulary moments"? Continue reading...
A Vocabulary.com user reported this vocab-in-the-news moment today: He woke up to his clock-radio alarm in mid-Republican-presidential-debate recap, just in time to hear Governor Chris Christie call President Barack Obama a "feckless weakling." "Now that's some good vocabulary!" our user wrote in. Continue reading...
The third debate among the Democratic candidates for President was held on December 19 in New Hampshire. Our VocabGrabber pulled out coalition, validation, and prioritize as the top three most relevant words used over the course of the evening. But it wasn't so much the words used so much as the Poetry 101 speechifying techniques that caught our attention — were Secretary of State Clinton, Senator Bernie Sanders, and Governor Martin O'Malley not-so-surreptitiously seeking the English teacher vote? Continue reading...
National party conventions are really about two things: painting the candidate you are supporting in the best possible light, and engaging in attacks on the opposition. Continue reading...
On August 3, 2016, CNN held a Libertarian Town Hall where that party's presidential candidate and his running mate tried to explain their positions, answer questions from the audience and appear to be a person one could cast a vote for. Continue reading...
The first and only vice-presidential debate was held on October 4, 2016 in Farmville, Virginia. Governor Mike Pence of Indiana, Donald Trump's running mate, and Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, Hillary Clinton's choice for number two on the ticket, exchanged ideas and sometimes insults. Continue reading...
Donald J. Trump, newly elected President, delivered a speech in the early morning hours of November 9, 2016 to celebrate his victory and thank his supporters. In contrast to much of his campaign rhetoric, these remarks sought to reach out to former adversaries and heal old wounds. Comparing the poetic language of Barack Obama's 2012 victory speech with the comparatively plain-spoken language of President-elect Trump's address gives us a window into two very different ways to accomplish many of the same goals. Continue reading...