Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles about Vocabulary
An extension of a federal highway program passed the House recently, over the objections of some Democrats. "Even as they were approving the measure in an anti-climatic voice vote, Democrats sharply criticized Republicans for not accepting a two-year, $109 billion version of the transportation measure the Senate had approved on a bipartisan vote earlier this month," one news report said.
Continue reading...
For years I've been reading the phrase at/in one fell swoop, and even using it occasionally, without ever examining it closely. I knew what it meant ("all at once"), and that it came from Shakespeare, but only recently did I stop and wonder: What's that fell doing there?
Continue reading...
On the last Monday in May, Memorial Day is celebrated in the United States. But wait: is celebrated the right word? Would it be more appropriate to say Memorial Day is observed? Wendalyn Nichols, an experienced editor and lexicographer, guides us through this usage quandary.
Continue reading...
Am I "different than" you? Or "different from " you? And does it matter?
"Different than is often considered inferior to different from," Garner's Modern American Usage says. We certainly don't want to be inferior. Continue reading...
Bob Greenman is an award-winning educator who spent 30 years in Brooklyn, New York teaching English and journalism at James Madison and Edward R. Murrow High Schools. Here he recalls how he he used objects encountered in everyday life as the inspiration for enjoyable and effective vocabulary instruction.
Continue reading...
This weekend I had the opportunity to ruminate about the self-consciously self-referential word meta for NPR's "All Things Considered" and for my language column in the Sunday Boston Globe. That's an awful lot of meta-commentary, but I've still got some more thoughts on meta, or make that meta-thoughts on meta.
Continue reading...
I recently witnessed one of those lightbulb illuminating moments when someone suddenly "got it." What this language learner "got" was the difference between adjectives and nouns prefixed with un-, and verbs prefixed with un-. The adjective/noun becomes negative, but the verb typically has its action reversed: unusual vs. unwrap, for example.
Continue reading...
Sign up now (it’s free!)
Whether you’re a teacher or a learner,
Vocabulary.com can put you or your class
on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.