by Kevin Burton Hindi and Urdu are two of the languages spoken in India. Today, a list of words borrowed from those languages, courtesy of Merriam-Webster. You can thank the dictionary and me today, if you are sleepy, or need to wash your hair: Pajamas: a loose usually two-piece lightweight suit designed especially for …
Category Archives: writing
The Sweet Elements Of The English Language
by Kevin Burton Separate an Oreo cookie into its two elements and you’re going to find out, it’s all good stuff. So it is when you start peeling apart words. They’re all sweet to the taste for some of us, even if at times they are bittersweet. Merriam-Webster served up a particularly …
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More Words You Can’t Quite Count On
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. …
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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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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Tell A Stranger About Philadelphia Freedom
by Kevin Burton Trying to wrestle down he lighter-than-air 70s anthem “Philadelphia Freedom” by Elton John is like trying to tell a stranger ‘bout rock and roll. You kind of can’t. You can parse the words if you like, look into its origins, the elements that went into it. But in the end …
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Coast To Coast: California Dreamin’
by Kevin Burton Texas has its outsized pretentions, but California for most of a century was considered the American promised land. This was reflected throughout popular culture, including in music. So there is no shortage of songs we could use to represent the Golden State in our summer rock and roll road trip …
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 …
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