barbecue

Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as it was originally called in the localities in which it was celebrated, began as an occasion for decorating the graves of soldiers who had died fighting in the U.S. Civil war. Declared a national holiday in 1966, it is traditionally observed by decorating fallen soldiers' graves, honoring them with parades, speeches, and concerts, and gathering for picnics and family gatherings. Celebrate Memorial Day with these words that help promote an understanding of the holiday's meaning. Then look for more meaning in the day by learning vocabulary from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and recite the famous memorial oration on this solemn day.

"I before E except after C." It's weird how often spelling rules like that don't work in English! Instead of spending countless hours learning a ton of spelling rules and hundreds of exceptions, choose the Spelling Bee activity to brush up on these commonly misspelled English words. It's an ingenious way for you to become a spelling genius! Here are links to our lists in the collection: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5, List 6

Ben Zimmer is the executive producer of Vocabulary.com and the Visual Thesaurus. He is language columnist for The Boston Globe and the former "On Language" columnist for The New York Times Magazine. He has worked as editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press and as a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary. He is also the chair of the New Words Committee of the American Dialect Society. We asked Ben, as an expert on the history of American English, to give us some of his favorite words that originated in the United States. "I'm fascinated by how the English language developed a unique American flavor (not flavour!) beginning in colonial times. I've been collecting examples of great contributions from American English. Here is a cornucopia of copacetic coinages from fertile American minds."