by Kevin Burton People from Wichita, the nearest large city to me, are called Wichitans. That’s straightforward enough. People from Puebla, Mexico, a city very near to my heart, are called Poblanos. Why not Pueblanos? Not sure, good question. Wichitan and Poblano are demonyms. The word demonym is “Rooted in the Greek …
Category Archives: Words
When In Denmark, Speak As The Danish Speak
by Dictionary Scoop Coming from the Indo-European language family, Danish has some funny idiomatic expressions. Some will leave you scratching your head. For example, “reading a horse.” What’s that all about? Continue reading to learn nine Danish expressions and their meaning translated. 1-Mind the cows When life gets a bit hard, we all need …
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Quibbles And Bits: Outlaw Z, Forgiveness
by Kevin Burton Come and get it kids, quibble and bits, short takes, follow-ups from recent posts, bits of news….. A day or two after I wrote about the letter Z and its two pronunciations (zed and zee), Meriam-Webster made “zeitgeist” its word of the day. The dictionary says zeitgeist is “the …
Here’s The Nice Side Of A Rich Vocabulary
by Kevin Burton Newsniks in general and I in particular have been accused of highlighting the negative side of life, seeking it out and advertising it. That’s not entirely fair, but neither is it a ridiculous assertion. It’s a discussion. But now via Merriam-Webster and as has been sung by Bing Crosby …
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You And Me, Digging Credence, By The Bog
by Kevin Burton The Page 7 blog publishes five days a week, usually, and almost every time I post it, I tease it (verb) on Facebook. A tease (noun) is like a little commercial. Mine are two or three-sentence previews that I write to try to get people interested in reading it. …
Last Word On Last Letter: Canada Says “Zed”
by Kevin Burton It’s the beginning of a new year, so leave it to Page 7 to take you to the end – of the alphabet that is. May I be the first to wish you a very happy International Z Day. “Z Day, celebrated on Jan. 1, is a quirky and …
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Keeping Score With The Language Of Sports
by Kevin Burton I knew sports played a big role in the shaping of our common language, but I didn’t know how big. We previously brought you a list of sports idioms on Page 7, but none of the ones from Dictionary Scoop that we posted yesterday or the one below, we’re on …
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Sporty Origins Of Some Popular Expressions
by Dictionary Scoop Have you ever heard someone say “I’ll have to start from scratch”? Ever wondered what “in the nick of time” means? What all these expressions have in common is that they originated in the world of sports. Want to know more? Discover all those phrases you often say but didn’t know …
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Stories Behind Sayings Involving The Moon
by Dictionary Scoop The moon has been a source of inspiration for poems, stories, and songs since ancestral times, its image recurring in our language as a symbol of beauty, grandeur, and ambition. Today we explore some well-known and some more obscure idioms. 1-Once in a Blue Moon We all know that this phrase …
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Power Slanguage Of A Groovy Generation
by Dictionary Scoop The 60s were truly a magical time, weren’t they? If there’s one word that truly defined this decade, it would be the word “freedom”: After all, the 60s were defined by their revolutionary new takes on music, art, and society in general. In fact, this era was so groundbreaking that …
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