Turns out the American Dialect Society callously disregarded my selection of conscious uncoupling (Gwyneth Paltrow's cuckoo-bananas term for divorce) for Euphemism of the Year. Instead, these linguists, lexicographers, word mavens, and rogue wordanistas selected EIT: an abbreviation of enhanced interrogation techniques, which is a euphemism of a euphemism. Continue reading...
In January, the American Dialect Society made history by selecting a hashtag, #blacklivesmatter, as its Word of the Year. The choice inspired composition professors at St. John's University in Queens, Professor Sophie Bell and Professor Amanda Moulder to create a lesson plan around the ADS's #blacklivesmatter selection, bringing attention to race and language in a way that feels relevant to students' lives. To kick off Black History Month, we're sharing the lesson plan they created. Continue reading...
What's the best way to start the month of February? With one teacher's inspiration to her students competing in the Vocabulary Bowl. Continue reading...
"The lexicographic kerfuffle, thank goodness, isn't dead," writes Stefan Fatsis in The New Yorker. Fatsis is referring to the recent controversy over the Oxford Junior Dictionary, which has substituted all-natural words like "almond," "blackberry," and "minnow," with such 21st-century fare as "blog," "chatroom," and "database." Some noted writers have said they are "profoundly alarmed" by the changes. Read all about it here. Continue reading...
In a review of FX's Cold War-era thriller "The Americans," which begins its third season tonight, New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley expects her readers to know what she means by the term tradecraft. Though many believe this to be a term invented by John le Carré, it's been in use by spies since the 1950s at least. Continue reading...
East Coast residents (outside of New England) might have been a bit underwhelmed by the blizzard-that-wasn't known as "Winter Storm Juno." While this "junior" storm has fallen short of the hyped-up expectations, it's still interesting to consider how it achieved named status in the first place. Continue reading...
Over the last week, I have exercised on an elliptical trainer that had a SmartRate heart monitor; watched movies on a smart TV; applied a product called Smart Serum to my face; and checked messages on a smartphone that has Smart Stay, Smart Pause, and Smart Scroll functions. 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 cold temperatures outside are nothing compared to the chill of a social freeze. Whether it's in a school, office, or neighborhood, the feeling of getting frozen out of a group or a relationship is a feeling so dreadful most of us avoid it at all costs. But it lives large enough in our imaginations that our collective vocabulary is filled with words to describe it. Continue reading...
HuffPost Live hosted a chat about the uncertain future of dictionaries in the digital era. Among the panelists was our own Ben Zimmer, who talked about how the move away from the printed page opens up exciting new possibilities for what a dictionary can do. Continue reading...