In a piece in The Atlantic last month, writer Mark Bowden recounts reading a book of military history filled with so many unusual words he was forced to consult a dictionary at least ten times. The experience made him ponder the balance between prose that's clear and easy to understand, and the enjoyment of using and reading the occasional rare and therefore "spicy" word. Continue reading...
The Academy Awards are a cornucopia of couture, celebrities and cinema! Whether you're writing a screenplay or a ransom note, your vocabulary can be blockbuster stuff. Here's a list of terms you're most likely to hear on Oscar night. Continue reading...
Unless you're a resident of the Lego Movie's Bricksburg where "Everything is Awesome," you may have noticed that awesome is...well...not quite as awesome as it used to be. In fact, says Tim Askew, writing for Inc., awesome has become so overused, it's "inescapable, like verbal kudzu choking out the variegated richness of the English language." Continue reading...
A mantle is a covering, like a robe. But a mantel is a ledge over a fireplace. If Little Red Riding Hood tosses her cloak on the shelf above her fireplace, she has a mantle on the mantel. Continue reading...
You'll find words you don't see every day woven into the tapestry of Isabel Allende's bestselling and critically-acclaimed The House of the Spirits. Learn them with five new interactive vocabulary lists drawn from the novel. Continue reading...
As you read Arundhati Roy's Booker Prize-winning classic The God of Small Things, learn words like jettison, mesmerize, and pariah with five Vocabulary Lists drawn from the novel. Continue reading...
High/low, yes/no, black/white. There's something reassuring about opposites. A lot of vocabulary teaching is done using pairs of opposites, and with good reason: learners really feel they have a handle on a concept if they grasp its antithesis. There are, however, some other concept families that are best learned using three terms — triples — that provide a middle ground which in turn enhances all three concepts. Continue reading...
Explore dozens of recommended titles for Women's History Month, each paired with a ready-made vocabulary list based on the original text. Continue reading...
Houston's Chavez High School did the unthinkable, pulling off their second consecutive victory in the 2015-2016 Vocabulary Bowl by surpassing more than 23,000 schools from around North America. The school celebrated with a special ceremony today, as students were presented with the Vocabulary Bowl trophy, medals for top students, and a special proclamation from the Mayor's office congratulating them on their impressive achievement. Continue reading...
Reviewing Disney's new Broadway adaptation of Aladdin, New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood describes Jonathan Freeman's Jafar as an "epicene menace." Let's take a look at what epicene through a picture of Jafar. Continue reading...