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. …
Category Archives: Words
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 …
Careful How You Navigate Foreign Exchange
by Kevin Burton There was a brief time in my life when I got paid in pesos, as I was teaching English to Mexican nationals in a language school in Puebla, Mexico. I don’t remember all the specifics now, but for some reason I wanted change for (I think) a 1,000-peso bill. I …
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English Idiom Equivalents In Other Languages
by Dictionary Scoop To say that the English language is filled to the brim with quirky and baffling idioms is no groundbreaking news. While we have previously delved into the inherent strangeness of the idioms we use every day, one of the most beautiful aspects of these phrases is how difficult they are to translate: …
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Latin, Like Ancient Rome, Never Gets Old
by Merriam-Webster Dictionary Over the centuries, certain Latin phrases have been used widely enough in English to get included in the dictionary. This list contains some of our favorites: In Vino Veritas Definition – “there is truth in wine”: The classy thing to say when you’ve had too much to drink and have just …
Friending Shakespeare And His Word Creations
by Kevin Burton Today we continue a sampling of words and phrases coined by William Shakespeare compiled by the Dictionary Scoop website. Five words and phrases Sunday, five more today. The first one on today’s list is a good description of me. The last one is a word I am sure you thought …
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