There are only three weeks to go in the 2018-19 Vocabulary Bowl season. Find out which schools are still in the running for coveted state and division champions banners. Continue reading...
Don't wait until a half-hour before guests arrive to realize you haven't the slightest clue what deglaze means. Recipes are not about food. They're about words. Continue reading...
Greetings from Washington, D.C., where the American Dialect Society is holding its annual conference. On Thursday, in my capacity as chair of the society's New Words Committee, I presided over the nominating session for various categories in our Word of the Year selection. Winners will be selected from the different categories on Friday evening, culminating in the vote for the overall Word of the Year. Here's the list of nominees. Continue reading...
It's that time of year when everyone is making their case for the Word of the Year. For Dennis Baron, English professor at the University of Illinois and author of the blog The Web of Language, the word of 2013 is none other than marriage. Continue reading...
Language allows us to communicate the ideas in our heads with other people. It is a main way we connect with the world around us. Because of that, language becomes very personal to each user. We form affinities for individual words because of what they mean to us. Continue reading...
The preliminary rounds of the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee are over! After a computerized test and two rounds of spelling on stage, 41 of the original 243 contestants have made it to the semifinal round. And even in these early rounds, the spellers encountered some tremendously difficult words. Continue reading...
We were thrilled to read an interview in which Drew Barrymore talks about how she "fell in love with the dictionary." Turns out, she's as into words as we are, and her favorite is the little-known "empyrean." Continue reading...
Until last month, holding the monthly words-mastered record was a feat that even the illustrious Etiwanda Eagles could not claim. Not any more. The real shocker? It was still preseason play. Continue reading...