Old-school news, just in time
by Kevin Burton I don’t know that Merriam-Webster consults Bob Dylan or vice versa, but the two are tied in today’s word list. “Blowin’ in the Wind” is among Dylan’s best and best-known works. So as not to be long-winded, let’s go directly to the dictionary’s list of words about the wind: Sirocco …
Continue reading “The Answer My Friend, Is In The Dictionary”
by Kelli Finger (from Mental Floss website) Braille is a tactile system that blind people use to learn to read and write, invented in 1824 by a blind French educator named Louis Braille. He revolutionized an existing writing and reading system that allowed blind people to enjoy books and communication. I certainly don’t know …
by Kevin Burton Some lamps that my mother has and loves, I don’t like. I think they’re ugly. For years my insult of choice was to call them “obtuse.” But I was using that word incorrectly. My good buddies at Merriam-Webster say obtuse means: “not pointed or acute” or “ of an …
by Kevin Burton If you have an appetite for words and/or dinner and dessert, you’re in the right place. One of the recent Words at Play columns from Merriam-Webster featured words from the Aztecs, who lived in central Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest. The language they spoke (and about …
by Kevin Burton If this starts to sound too much like the glass half empty-half full thing, please let me know. But when someone says, “You look like you’re half asleep” doesn’t that also mean you are half awake? And which is preferable, wakefulness or sleep? And in the literal sense of …
by Kevin Burton I was sure I would see it. Lead-pipe sinch said I. Metaphysical certitude, as John McLaughlin used to say on The McLaughlin Group. Merriam -Webster put together a list of words about energy and enthusiasm and I happily scrolled to see what they had to say about the word “spunk.” …
by Kevin Burton American farm country has fed the world and supplied it with a number of mud-caked idioms, as we have seen with the help of Merriam-Webster. Today we bring it all home with our third and final installment of Barnyard Idioms. We start with an idiom touching on my job …
by Kevin Burton I seem to remember on The Beverly Hillbillies, one or more of the Clampetts describing someone as “muley” to mean they were exceptionally stubborn. Now I see that Merriam-Webster, the dictionary supplying us with idioms from farm country, defines muley as “hornless.” Stay tuned for our second helping of …
by Kevin Burton Today I am owning my farm-country standing and taking a look at some phrases we have exported to the rest of the country. Merriam-Webster calls them “barnyard idioms.” I don’t love that name but I must admit some of these phrases are more than a little muddy. From Kansas …
by Kevin Burton Summer has not arrived but planning for summer has. Our friends at Merriam-Webster have provided some words that may or may not describe your 2023 getaway(s). Frankly, I would avoid some of these, but that’s up to you: Jaunty adjective: sprightly in manner or appearance. When jaunty first came into English use …
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