by Kevin Burton When you bite the hand that feeds you, chances are you won’t get fed anymore. Or you could say it this way: “no more fun and games.” That’s the story of the Houston-based, late 60s sunshine pop band The Fun And Games, according to published accounts. Not very …
Category Archives: writing
The Weird, Wacky Words Of The Wild West
by Dictionary Scoop Cowboys in the Old West not only tamed the inhospitable land, but they also forged their own language. They created unrefined similes and metaphors, broke the rules of grammar, flooded figures of speech with humor, and made a verb out of anything. In this article, we review 12 expressions we …
Happy 80th Birthday To The Great Bob Seger
by Kevin Burton Bob Seger’s highest charting song is not the song closest to his heart, nor, I’m guessing, is it foremost in the esteem of his true-blue fans. The beloved singer-songwriter from Ann Arbor, Michigan turns 80 today. So I looked up his chart history to see if he had ever had …
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Money Talks, But Sometimes It Talks Funny
by Dictionary Scoop Some don’t like to talk money, but still, there is no shortage of money-related sayings, phrases, and idioms. Here are the origins and meanings of ten fun expressions about money, 1-Burning a hole in your pocket We could divide most people into two groups: On one side, those who know how to save, look …
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Mark Twain And Hannibal To The Rescue
by Kevin Burton Thirty-six little hours before we were to set sail for Memphis, my wife Jeannette checked the weather. And we never set sail for Memphis. The National Weather Service had issued a flood warning covering Memphis at exactly the same time we had planned to hit town. That sort of …
Flowers Can Wait, They’ll Be Here Tomorrow
by Kevin Burton Now flowers come from seeds. But flower etymologies come from every linguistic corner under heaven, ubiquitous as the flowers themselves it seems. On a beautiful Spring day, imagine an average couple driving the highways and byways of the heartland in a beautiful 2012 Toyota. And the wife might say, “Do …
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How I Rode Cold Notes Straight To The Top
by Kevin Burton Today we finish up the Dictionary Scoop website’s list of jargon phrases used in journalism. As I did yesterday, I will add to the list. “Above The Fold” is a term that refers to stories and pictures that appear in the top half of the front page. It’s the part …
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Speaking My Language, Journalism Jargon
by Kevin Burton Every industry has its insider jargon and our friends at Dictionary Scoop have released a list of journalism phrases. And I’ll get to it, gladly. But first, one bone to pick. So the way I was trained in journalism was, get to the point, now. Put the most important …
Plant Idioms To Grow Your Vocabulary
by Dictionary Scoop In honor of summer solstice tomorrow we have cherry-picked 10 expressions related to plants and flowers that will make you want to go outside and smell the roses! 1-Beat around the bush Some people are direct and cut to the chase, and others take their time to say what they have to say. When …
“Killing Me Softly” Singer Roberta Flack Dies
by Kevin Burton Roberta Flack had an ear for music as good as her legendary voice, and she knew she was on to something. The vocalist-composer-arranger was on a cross-country flight when she first heard “Killing Me Softly With His Song” over headphones on the plane’s sound system. Flack would re-shape the song …
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