by Kevin Burton You could go to college and learn about words and word formation, or you could go to the nearest schoolyard. How do we get the words we get? The cool kids, the most influential ones, talk a certain way. Soon the school follows. Believe me, in school had turns …
Category Archives: dictionary
Scrabble Words And “Y” As A Proud Vowel
by Kevin Burton Merriam-Webster promised me a list of Scrabble words without vowels, but delivered a bunch of words (with one exception) with the letter Y in them. Y is a vowel, a card-carrying vowel. The fact that it has a part-time job as a consonant does not change that. The venerable dictionary …
More English Words From Japanese
by Kevin Burton Some of my totally blind friends used to fold dollar bills in certain ways so they would know what denomination they were. That was before the days of bill reader devices, so I’m not sure anybody does that folding any more. Anyway I used to call that folding that people …
English Words That Come From Japanese
by Kevin Burton Words do not respect borders, nor do they need passports to move from country to country. We don’t think of Japan so much as an origin for English words, but plenty of words are borrowed from Japanese. Merriam-Webster dictionary has served up a basketful, some of which I bring today. …
Multiple English Idioms By The Numbers
by Dictionary Scoop In every language, there is a type of gem known as idioms that add spice to our conversations, relying on context and shared understanding to convey messages in a not-so-direct way. Today, we’ll explore ten idioms in English that play with numbers. 1 One-horse town Many idioms begin as a literal phrase that …
More Genius Phrasing From Shakespeare
by Kevin Burton Shakespeare’s genius influenced many phrases and idioms we unknowingly use every day. That’s why Dictionary Scoop put together a list of common expressions that were either created or made famous by Shakespeare and his characters. We listed five of them yesterday on Page 7. Today, five more. “American literary critic …
Origins For Ten Slang Words And Phrases
by Dictionary Scoop Think how boring our vocabularies would be if we didn’t have a more laid-back, informal register on which we could fall back. Most of us don’t even realize how much slang we use in basically every conversation we have. Well, we decided to research the astonishing beginnings of these ten slang …
Ten Expressions With Musical Origins
Dictionary Scoop Music influences almost every single aspect of our modern world, and our language is no exception. We have gathered ten of our favorite musical terms that have found their way into becoming everyday words: 1 Gig The word “gig” refers to a job, usually a single-time event for which a musician …
Animal Names That Are Also Verbs
by Kevin Burton My late great cat Mex had a verb coined in her honor. She used to head butt people, as opposed to the usual cat way of rubbing against people with the side of the head or body. To headbutt became “To Mex.” Usage: “Stop Mexing me!” It’s a …
Words Describing That Road-Trip Feeling
by Dictionary Scoop Aside from the mechanical aspects of moving oneself from one place to the other, the poetry of wanderlust and journeys creates words to describe sensations, feelings, and experiences. All over the world, different expressions from different languages describe similar human experiences relating to the joy of traveling and discovering new …
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