Tag Archives: English language

What’s Your WOTY

Posted on December 29, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Along with seemingly endless “best of lists of the year” we are also now being offered lots of options for the WOTY (word of the year). The English language seems to provide ample fodder these days with a wealth of … Continue reading →

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Through Thick and Thin

Posted on August 19, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

I don’t think that I’ve read Chaucer since high school, but I was still fascinated when I ran across an article on the many commonly used English phrases that he  coined (or popularized) a lot of phrases that we still … Continue reading →

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What’s The Word

Posted on November 30, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

“Authentic” was chosen as the 2023 word of the year by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, coming in as the most-looked-up words in the dictionary’s 500,000 entries, the company said in a press release. “Although clearly a desirable quality, authentic is hard to define … Continue reading →

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words at play

Posted on April 24, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

MIT Press Bookstore bookseller Barry Duncan stumbled onto the book “An Almanac of Words at Play” four decades ago and it changed his life. Duncan discovered that words could go backwards. The realization set him on a course he would … Continue reading →

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English can be tricky

Posted on March 29, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

 

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Does English Need New Punctuation

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I find that written English communication lacks the exact punction marks to clearly express tone, meaning, or emotion. Well, I was glad to discover that the Progressive Punctuation movement is addressing the problem. According to … Continue reading →

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Enough with the GOATs

Posted on January 5, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

It’s that time of the year when the faculty of Lake Superior State University releases an annual list of words that they say deserve to be “banished” from our vocabularies over “misuse, overuse and uselessness.” “Our nominators insisted, and our … Continue reading →

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What’s the Word

Posted on November 29, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

Merriam-Webster  dictionary reports that its word of the year is the manipulative, misdirecting term that causes the target to question the surety of their own sanity, is taken from the title of the George Cukor 1944 classic film Gaslight. Although in … Continue reading →

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The Naked Truth and More

Posted on July 21, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

I have to admit that I was a poor student of William Shakespeare’s work while I was in secondary school. Over the years, I have come to appreciate the brilliance of his writings, but I was not aware of the … Continue reading →

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Compounding Your Pejoratives

Posted on July 9, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

I have recently found myself reaching for both colorful and acceptable pejoratives when commenting on social media sites. This is partly due to the necessity of avoiding Twitter jail, but also to liven the mood. The terrific chart above was … Continue reading →

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