I admit it — I’m a lousy proofreader. This was especially embarrassing when I worked in the publishing business, editing a magazine on Disney collectibles. It seemed every issue had something misspelled or misquoted. But I’ve found some comfort in a recent article on the Dictionary;Scoop website. Entitled “The 10 Funniest Mistakes, Typos, And Misprints
Why is a koala bear a marsupial and not a bear? Because it doesn’t have the right koala-fications. Since this subject has come up, here are some facts about koalas. According to the San Diego Zoo, koalas are mammals, and they do resemble teddy bears with their round, fuzzy ears. But they are definitely marsupials,
I’m always interested in quirks in the English language. So when I found an article “What’s the Longest Word in English?” on the Pocket website (https://getpocket.com/explore/item/what-s-the-longest-word-in-english?), I was intrigued. I know the Welsh language is famous (infamous?) for long words; see “The Longest Words in the Welsh Language” (https://talkpal.ai/the-longest-words-in-the-welsh-language/). And of course there is antidisestablishmentarianism
In an earlier post, I had mentioned that Disctionary.com had announced demure — “characterized by shyness and modesty; reserved,” — as its Word of the Year. Now the Oxford University Press has taken a completely different approach. Its 2024 Oxford Word of the Year is brain rot — “supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or
Life is full of contradictions, something we usually try to avoid. And yet, have you ever read a statement or problem that either appears to produce two completely contradictory (but possible) outcomes, or seems to prove something we can’t expect? This is a paradox. They can be mind-blowing, yet also fun to contemplate. For example,
It’s that time of the year again. Dictionary.com has announced demure as 2024’s Word of the Year. Dictionary.com defines demure as “characterized by shyness and modesty; reserved,” but the word took on new life on the Internet. More specifically, it was popularized on TikTok by Jools Lebron, whose phrase “very demure, very mindful” was featured in a
Do you remember being forced to read Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in high school? Do you remember how weird the English of that period sounded? The English language is constantly changing; Google has become a verb. I was reminded of this again when I ran across the article “20 Delightful Slang Terms From the 1930s”
The origin of common expressions is always a fascinating subject. Some origins are reasonably obvious, like “flash in the pan” and “going off half-cocked,” come from firearms. But other derivations are more obscure. Take the word “tarnation.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this expression is a combination of two terms: darnation, a natural variant of damnation; and tarnal, a
One thing you can say about English, it’s dynamic. (Whoever thought Google would become a verb?) New words get added every year. For example, Dictionary.com has recently added or updated more than 1,700 words. Here are some of the more interesting examples — Bed rotting — “noun. The practice of spending many hours in bed during the day,
Would you be surprised if I told you Frank Fish was a marine biologist? Or that Carla Dove is the director of the Feather Identification Lab at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.? These are examples of aptonyms, –people with names that fit their careers. This concept shouldn’t be too surprising,