Old-school news, just in time
by Tracy Conly (Tracy Conly is a longtime friend from our days at the Ohio State School for the Blind, a great Braille reader and advocate for the blind. This is her reaction to our March 15 story “A New Tool In The Fight For Braille Literacy.”) “Braille changes lives. It gives thousands …
Continue reading “Far From Being Obsolete, Braille Is Essential”
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 …
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. …
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 …
by interestingfacts.com Words named after specific people are known as eponyms. After enough time passes, the namesake is often forgotten while the word sticks around, so many eponyms no longer even register as someone’s name. These eight eponyms are among the most surprising, and cover subjects from musical instruments to facial hair to …
by Dictionary Scoop For Charles M. Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip, happiness is a warm puppy. For some, it’s a habit. For others, it is a philosophy, a quest, or an ideal, among many other things. Join us on a linguistic journey through the lexicon of happiness, discovering the many shades and …
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 …
by Kevin Burton I feel bad that I haven’t read anything by Shakespeare all the way through. Don’t know why I feel that way. The next person who asks me if I have read Shakespeare, will be the first. So it doesn’t really matter. Ask me in public, “Shakespeare or Steely Dan” …
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 …
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 …
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