Category Archives: The English Language

The Benefits(?) Of Sarcasm

At the high school where I substitute teach, an English teacher has a poster for the National Sarcasm Society. Their symbol is a jackass and their slogan is “Like We Need Your Support.” Actually, there is a Sarcasm Society (https://www.sarcasmsociety.com/) and there’s plenty of “National Sarcasm Society” merchandise available on Amazon.com. I suppose this can

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Does English have Enough Words?

How many words are there in the English language? I’ve seen estimates ranging from 400,000 to as many as a million if you count all the scientific and technical terms, although a quick Google search says the Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use (https://wordcounter.io/blog/how-many-words-are-in-the-english-language/). No matter who is counting, a

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Following Politics Through Words

One way to keep up with what’s happening is to follow word trends, According to Merriam-Webster, here are some of the words people have been looking up recently. Kangaroo Court — Inquiries jumped 11,000% on October 8 after President Trump described the congressional impeachment hearings as “a totally compromised kangaroo court.” Merriam-Webster’s definition is either “a

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The History of Meme

The English language is fascinating, especially regarding the way new words are formed and how meanings evolve. Take “meme.” According to Merriam-Webster, the current meaning is “an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) that is spread widely online especially through social media.” But the word itself isn’t new. It actually goes

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Word Origins — Boilerplate

With so many words in the English language (I’ve seen estimates of from 400,000 to a million), there are some interesting origin stories. For example, boilerplate. According Merriam-Webster, boilerplate can mean a syndicated material supplied especially to weekly newspapers in matrix or plate form, or standardized text, especially formulaic or hackneyed language. These meanings originated in the

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