by Dictionary Scoop You learn your colors before kindergarten, but how did they get their names? And what did we call “orange” first, was it the color or the fruit? Let’s explore the multi-hued history of how color names came to be! 1-Blue “Blue” comes from the Old French word bleu, which in …
Category Archives: Words
The Phrases We Use When Things Are Easy
by Dictionary Scoop Some things in life are so simple and effortless that they deserve their own colorful descriptions. It wasn’t difficult to compile these ten phrases: 1-I can do it in my sleep We all have that one recipe we know by heart—the one we turn to whenever we want to impress …
Regional Speech Patterns Travel With You
by Kevin Burton One fine morning in a restaurant we don’t often go to, in a small town where you better not speed or they’ll fine you for sure (Derby, Kansas), a waitress referred to my wife and I as “yins.” That is a contraction of “you ones” and it’s a regionalism from …
Savoring Food Words From Merriam-Webster
by Kevin Burton After last week’s posts about the Food Network, we set the table once more with words about food from our friends at Merriam-Webster dictionary. I have heard the chefs on TV drop some of these words, but other words on the list sound more like Roman or Jewish names from …
Getaway Day, Glorious Beyond (These) Words
by Kevin Burton It takes a little work to make a vacation happen doesn’t it? You don’t just up and go. You have to make sure everything is taken care of. Animals, if you have them. The homestead. Plus you have to arrange for accommodations on the road. But there comes a …
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That’s More Like It!, Real Scrabble Strategy
by Kevin Burton My mom and I have played a lot of Scrabble over the years. Neither of us pursued victory by waiting around for jawbreaker words such as the one ones featured in yesterday’s Scrabble post. Muzjiks? Bezique? Quetzal? Let me know when you get those sets of letters on your rack! …
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Interesting But Hard-To-Play Scrabble Words
by Kevin Burton As usual, Dictionary Scoop has an interesting list today. But this one has next to no value. It’s a list of the biggest, bangiest Scrabble words. The words that if successfully deployed, would bring the highest scores. But your chances of ever having these exact letters on your board …
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Can’t Forget The Breakfast Club, Simple Minds
by Kevin Burton It’s been 40 years and I haven’t forgotten. But it would appear that my limited affection for Simple Minds begins and ends with Ally Sheedy and The Breakfast Club. Both the band and the Brat Pack were white hot in 1985, 40 years ago this week, when “Don’t You …
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Twelve Legal Terms Everyone Should Know
by Dictionary Scoop If you have ever been befuddled by a legal term in a conversation, a document, TV, or elsewhere, you are certainly not alone. The law has a certain way with words and it can be tricky for the layman to fully understand their meaning. This article serves as a humble …
Plant Names That Sound Like Insults
by Kevin Burton If you’re not good at gardening, you can say that you have a “brown thumb.” You can say it, I won’t. Yes the antonym of “green thumb” which speaks to people who are good at gardening is “brown thumb.” But that sounds much worse than it needs to, so I’ll …
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