by Kevin Burton We all know that time marches on. So does technology and so does the language we use to describe it. Today from our friends at Merriam-Webster dictionary, we get some phrases made necessary by those inexorable marches. They are called retronyms. Think of them as a blast to the past. …
Category Archives: writing
The Eight Most Beautiful Words In English?
by Kevin Burton Not sure who at the Dictionary Scoop website has deemed himself/herself worthy to determine the most beautiful words in English, but here goes. I bring you the website’s choices below. It’s at least the starting point for an argument. And since there can’t possibly be an ending point to such …
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Quibbles And Bits: Going Postal, Smart Water
by Kevin Burton Come and get it, kids! Page 7 is now serving up quibbles and bits for the first time in 2024. \ We’ve been helping you connect the dots since 2019 and we’re not about to stop now So here’s a train of thought that makes a few stops along the way……. …
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What Is The Meaning Of Nyro’s “Stoney End”?
by Kevin Burton One of the greatest vocal performances in my time as a consumer of pop music is on a song that leaves me deeply conflicted; Stoney End by Barbara Streisand. The song grabbed me on some level immediately upon its 1971 release, even before I had the life experience to understand …
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Great Words From Great Literature
by Kevin Burton If you have ever suffered a slip of the tongue, or a trip and all out tumble, you will appreciate the first of our words today from Merriam-Webster. Who among us hasn’t reached for a word, deployed it with great confidence, only to find it mangled in some way, often …
Words We Got From Characters In Books
by Kevin Burton I don’t regret having read the backs of so many baseball cards so much as a youth, but I do wish I had mixed in a few more of the better works of literature. Today we get some of what I missed out on, from a list compiled by Merriam-Webster …
Origins Of Six Classic Christmas Songs
by interestingfacts.com The ubiquity of holiday songs on television, radio, and social media from Thanksgiving through Christmas ensures that we’ll be able to sing these anthems in our sleep. But lesser known are the backstories behind these famous tunes, which share common themes but draw from vastly different sources. From centuries-old standards to …
Forgotten Words Inhabit Christmas Songs
by Kevin Burton Christmas brings with it a combination of the most modern of gifts under the tree and the most old-timey of words used to sing about it. Merriam-Webster dictionary has compiled a list of words we seldom encounter outside of Christmas songs. We bring you more of those today, and we …
Archaic Words From Christmas Songs
by Kevin Burton Uh-oh, I think I may be archaic. Our friends at Merriam-Webster dictionary served up a timely platter of cookies this week, a list of “archaic” words we know from Christmas songs. Well I just used one of these words last week on Page 7! In order to keep this …
These Palindromes Get You Coming And Going
by dictionaryscoop.com We all remember palindromes from our childhood years. Funny sentences that read the same forward as backward. Some are short, some incredibly long, and while some do make sense, most of them are surrealist, to say the least. From the whimsical “A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!” to the succinct …
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