by Kevin Burton Yesterday we brought clarity to numerical words and phrases which are indefinite, in some cases to the point of mystification. And you have come back for more. Thanks! And here is a bonus number-word definition: If I say “thanks a bunch” or “Thanks a million” it’s all the same. …
Category Archives: Words
Helpful Hints For Tricky Words And Phrases
by Kevin Burton I can still hear Rosa, one of my English as a Second Language students trying out a new word, “seldom.” I was a reasonably good teacher without having had any training. She was a very good student, having had better teachers in the earlier levels of English study. “Seldom.” …
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What I Couldn’t Remember, I Now Can’t Forget
by Kevin Burton The Scrabble words deployed against you that get you beat; those are the ones you remember the best. Something kind of similar happened with my Bible memory verses recently. I’ve written previously about my memory verses, typed on paper, taped onto index cards of various colors. I am up …
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Producers Of Braille Are Touching Lives
by Kevin Burton Today we touch on two stories about braille being produced from unexpected sources. NBC Connecticut ran a story about female inmates at York Correctional Facility becoming certified as Braille transcriptionists. Five inmates completed the program Aug. 24. I wish NBC had quoited some of them. But here is part …
Do You Still Write Personal Letters?
by Kevin Burton Here’s a shoutout to Angie in Michigan, Linda in England and to hundreds of others who made this post possible. It’s World Letter Writing Day according to the National Day Calendar. I am still a practitioner of the art. Back in the day, I was an extreme practitioner. A …
The Answer My Friend, Is In The Dictionary
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 …
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Ten Brilliant Facts About Braille
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 …
Five-Dollar Words At A Deep Discount
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 …
Chocolate And More Words From The Aztecs
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 …
Motown’s Move To LA Stifled The Magic
by Kevin Burton There is more than a little irony in the 1971 Jackson 5 song “Going Back To Indiana.” That makes for an easy choice to make Indiana a destination for our summer rock and roll road trip, Coast to Coast. For Coast to Coast we are talking rock and roll history, …
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