Words For Your Wild, Carefree, Summer

by Kevin Burton    Summer has not arrived but planning for summer has. Our friends at Merriam-Webster have provided some words that may or may not describe your 2023 getaway(s).    Frankly, I would avoid some of these, but that’s up to you: Jaunty adjective: sprightly in manner or appearance.    When jaunty first came into English use …

Wobble Talk And Fighting Words In English

by Kevin Burton    Here’s one subject that never came up when I was teaching English in Mexico – thank God!    In English, when you see the vowel combination “ae” how do you pronounce it?    This was brought to my attention on an otherwise glorious Saturday morning by our friends at the Merriam-Webster …

More Words About Deep Thinking

by Kevin Burton    Last Friday I presented some of the words about thinking compiled by Merriam-Webster. Today I bring you the rest of their list.    Call this overthinking if you like. It wouldn’t be my first visit to that particular boulevard.     Whereas all the words I included Friday are useful, most of …

Thinking Deeply With Merriam-Webster

by Kevin Burton    My friend and co-worker on my college newspaper Tim, once suggested that thinking become a new sport.  That’s something that should really be pursued.       In this thinksport, there should be a penalty for speaking without thinking.    Maybe I’ll continue this thought later. For now, I want to share …

Words For The Cranky And Disagreeable

by Kevin Burton    God help me not to resemble this post.    But today we tune into Merriam-Webster’s “19 words for the cranky and disagreeable,”part of the words at play column on its website. We will not get to all 19, but here are some of the more helpful terms as you seek to …

Words Borrowed From Foreign Languages

by Kevin Burton    When I travel to foreign lands such as Mexico or Mississippi, I bring back souvenirs. I’m sure you do too in your travels.    Some of the souvenirs we bring back are words and phrases. Today we look at some favorites from the Merriam Webster dictionary. Their list is of words …

Words For Real Life Or For Scrabble

by Kevin Burton      “Scrabble” is not a German word meaning “one letter off,” that’s just my little joke.    Scrabble also at its essence is not a word game as commonly supposed, but a game of mathematics and strategic placement of little tile soldiers.    For the words used in scrabble aren’t words so …

Loud Arguments About Silent Letters

by Kevin Burton    When my parents issued me flash cards before kindergarten, I wondered why the work “knife” had a K in it when it didn’t do anything.     All these years later I hear from Merriam-Webster that not just e’s and k’s but all the letters of the English alphabet are silent at …

All The Letters Can Be Silent? Shut Up!

by Kevin Burton    Silent E is so famous it has a song, we all know about that one. We know how the letter e at the end of man, changes the word to mane, for example.    The silent e turns the a from short to long.    But did you know all the …

Hey Word Lovers, Have An Awesome Day!

by Kevin Burton    Good day you awesome readers! Are you sick yet of the word “awesome”?    The term’s overuse is sparking some awesome outrage among speakers of English. Some generational friction emerges when you look into who is cool with “awesome” and who is not.    “Awesome” started with the California surfer crowd …