The latest installment in Maryrose Wood's Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series hits bookstores tomorrow. It's delightfully rich in adventure, humor, and...vocabulary. In honor of its release, Wood joins us to talk about why she loves to use big words with kid readers. And to define pteridological.Continue reading...
There's a lot to love about Nigel Hayes of the Wisconsin Badgers. Now NCAA fans can add his impressive vocabulary to that list. In a press conference held this Saturday in Omaha, Hayes decided to make things interesting for the stenographer in the room by working a string of 3-point vocabulary into his statements. "I actually like words," Hayes said.Continue reading...
They could have called it a dustup. A run-in. Fisticuffs. A kerfuffle. (Or even the sequipedalian batrachomyomachia.) But the BBC chose to use fracas in describing the event that led to the the suspension of Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson, sending many of us to our dictionaries with the question, "What does that mean?"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...
Like stargazers pointing out particularly twinkly items seen in the night sky, we generally use this column to alert the world to shiny words we come across in our reading here. Today, we're pointing out a piece of writing without a single piece of vocabulary bling in it, a vocabulary-oriented achievement in its own right.Continue reading...
Writing about the relationship between Russia and the Ukraine this past year, Steve Forbes has taken to using the somewhat rare word satrap. We're thrilled that Forbes is trotting out the not-often-seen word, but want to offer a correction.Continue reading...
As our culture becomes more homogenized, regional language distinctions fade away. But many are still out there, and they're still fun. Case in point: Taylor Swift's video on New York City-specific vocab, made for NYCGO's "Welcome 2 New York" campaign.Continue reading...