An ax and a chisel are tools used to hew — that is, to chop or shape a material such as wood or stone. But a paintbrush and a palette are tools that can help an artist get just the right hue — a color or shade of color. Continue reading...
A Bowl blowout means sweet redemption for a new champion, and students across North America achieve their own epic success with over 14 million words mastered in just 3 months. Continue reading...
Vocabulary.com will serve on the judging panel of The New York Times Learning Network's Summer Reading Contest for 2013. We are pleased to join what the Learning Network is calling "a powerhouse panel of...young-adult literary organizations." Continue reading...
Say you're reading the "About Us" page on a company's website, and they tell a little story about how they came up with a common word long ago, perhaps as part of an early advertising campaign or in the creation of a consumer product. Should you believe the story? Don't count on it! That's the lesson of my latest On Language column in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, exploring the tricky terrain of corporate etymology — or rather, etymythology. Continue reading...
With Valentine's Day fast approaching, now is the time to brush up on words to impress your sweetheart, or simply boost your vocab with some love-related words. Continue reading...
Another week, another update from a dictionary publisher reflecting recent additions to the lexicon. Last week, it was Merriam-Webster rolling out new words, including such eyebrow-raisers as f-bomb and sexting. Now comes Oxford Dictionaries Online with their quarterly update, making space for some trendy neologisms, including lolz, ridic, and the nefarious mwahahaha.Continue reading...
Third-party research finds that students who regularly used Vocabulary.com achieved substantially higher scores and year-over-year growth on standardized ELA exams than peers who did not use the platform. Continue reading...
This Sunday marks the fifth anniversary of the premiere episode of "The Colbert Report," Stephen Colbert's endlessly entertaining sendup of political pundit programs. On that episode, Colbert introduced the word "truthiness," which has proved so popular that it has entered the latest edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary. For my On Language column in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, I had the pleasure of interviewing Colbert (as himself, not his put-upon persona) and learned the inside story of "truthiness." Here is an extended excerpt from our conversation. Continue reading...
In a piece for Politico, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives Steve LaTourette cited the Vocabulary.com blurb for grifter when he used that term to describe an arm of the Republican party. Politics aside, grifter is a great word and we're glad to see it getting some play. Continue reading...