by Kevin Burton OK guys, Valentine’s Day is coming. This gift from me to you, for use in your valentine’s messages, comes with a warning label. This is a list of words that mean “beautiful,” supplied by our friends at Merriam-Webster. Some of these words don’t sound very complimentary though. Wade through them …
Category Archives: dictionary
Sports Terms We Use In Everyday Life
by Dictionary Scoop Each sport has its slang, shared by both players and fans as an inside language meant for those in the know. These words and expressions come from all over the place, with origins as varied as the messages they convey. While some are secret words only used within the realm …
Common Words With Uncommon Histories
by Dictionary Scoop Most words we use in everyday life have interesting stories to tell. Behind the facade of triviality, the history of whole languages (and the people who spoke those languages) unfolds like a rich tapestry of meaning and social threads. English is a language with a long history, and over the …
Retronyms: The New Defining The Old
by Kevin Burton We all know that time marches on. So does technology and so does the language we use to describe it. Today from our friends at Merriam-Webster dictionary, we get some phrases made necessary by those inexorable marches. They are called retronyms. Think of them as a blast to the past. …
The Eight Most Beautiful Words In English?
by Kevin Burton Not sure who at the Dictionary Scoop website has deemed himself/herself worthy to determine the most beautiful words in English, but here goes. I bring you the website’s choices below. It’s at least the starting point for an argument. And since there can’t possibly be an ending point to such …
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Great Words From Great Literature
by Kevin Burton If you have ever suffered a slip of the tongue, or a trip and all out tumble, you will appreciate the first of our words today from Merriam-Webster. Who among us hasn’t reached for a word, deployed it with great confidence, only to find it mangled in some way, often …
Forgotten Words Inhabit Christmas Songs
by Kevin Burton Christmas brings with it a combination of the most modern of gifts under the tree and the most old-timey of words used to sing about it. Merriam-Webster dictionary has compiled a list of words we seldom encounter outside of Christmas songs. We bring you more of those today, and we …
Archaic Words From Christmas Songs
by Kevin Burton Uh-oh, I think I may be archaic. Our friends at Merriam-Webster dictionary served up a timely platter of cookies this week, a list of “archaic” words we know from Christmas songs. Well I just used one of these words last week on Page 7! In order to keep this …
12 Words We Need In The English Language
by Kevin Burton What a glorious toybox is language. Words and their shadings and peculiarities have been one of the few constants I can count on in life. The little sticks-and-stones bromide which states “words will never hurt me” is false in its context. Words can hurt a lot when used improperly, especially …
Dictionary Words Are Funky, Stylish And Cool
by Kevin Burton If the 60s were groovy, the 70s were nothing if not funky. The funk was everywhere then, beginning with music, first seeping then flowing into just about everything else. The funk was the soup we swam in. But I was a little surprised to see funky show up on …
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