Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles about Words
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.
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Language LoungeA Monthly Column for Word Lovers
The Pulse(s) of the Nation(s)
What's a "pulse"? Along with a heartbeat, it's also a formal term for beans.
The breathless anticipation is now at an end and the festivities can commence: it is 2016, the International Year of Pulses. If your main dialect of English is a North American one, you may begin by wondering whose pulses are included, since you probably think of pulse as designating the rhythmic contraction and expansion of the arteries with each beat of the heart. But there is the other pulse, familiar to speakers of other English dialects, that is more or less synonymous with legume.
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It's hard to believe another year has left the building, leaving us all closer to singing with the angels, talking a dirt nap, or insert your euphemism for death here. Like any other year, 2015 was full of new words and old words newly prominent. While many of these terms were stalwart members of the lexicon, others were sneaky, sketchy, and suspect: there were euphemisms aplenty.
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Behind the DictionaryLexicographers Talk About Language
Is It "School Board" or "Board of Education"?
It's been a while since I've written a column for this space, and in large part the hiatus has been due to my (successful) campaign for a seat on my local school board. Or board of education. Which is it? Is there a difference?
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Word RoutesExploring the pathways of our lexicon
The Year in Words 2015: One Pronoun to Rule Them All?
Taking a look back at noteworthy words of the year, including an up-and-coming pronoun.
As is the annual tradition, it is time once again to look back at the new and notable words of the past year. In 2015, could the most significant word have been a lowly pronoun?
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Vocabulary Shout-Out
"Feckless Weakling" is Last Night's Republican Debate Stand-Out Phrase
"Now that's some good vocabulary!" a Vocabulary.com user writes in.
A Vocabulary.com user reported this vocab-in-the-news moment today: He woke up to his clock-radio alarm in mid-Republican-presidential-debate recap, just in time to hear Governor Chris Christie call President Barack Obama a "feckless weakling." "Now that's some good vocabulary!" our user wrote in.
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For the latest installment of Slate's podcast Lexicon Valley, I look at how the seemingly random number eighty-six became a verb meaning to get rid of something, thanks to a long-forgotten code of hash houses and soda-fountain lunch counters.
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