Tag: etymology

group name: usetherightwords
posts (107) | photos (0) | videos (0)
The following posts were tagged etymology.
1 2  3  4  5  | next > 
Sort by Short List ViewList View

July 10, 2008 03:02 PM EDT -- [ Listen using RealPlayer ] [ Download and listen to MP3 ] [ Subscribe to podcast ] Catherine from Edina, Minnesota, sent this message to us:   "Please address the word preventive . . . more
April 20, 2007 12:06 PM EDT -- AX    Ax, a common nonstandard variant of ask, is often identified as an especially salient feature of African American Vernacular English. While it is true that the form is frequent in the . . . more
November 13, 2008 04:13 PM EST -- [ Listen to 64K MP3 stream ] [ Download and listen to podcast ] [ Subscribe to podcast ] This week on Grammar Grater, our topic is inspired by a message from Patricia, a listener in Orlando, Fla. . . . more
April 13, 2007 09:36 AM EDT -- AUTHOR   From an etymological perspective, the word author ought to be pronounced almost like otter. Author ultimately comes from Latin auctor, “creator,” a noun derived from the verb . . . more
June 01, 2007 09:31 AM EDT -- STOOP   Originally brought to the Hudson Valley of New York by settlers from the Netherlands, a few items of Dutch vocabulary have survived there from colonial times until the present. Stoop, “a . . . more
April 18, 2007 09:41 AM EDT -- NON SEQUITUR noun   A statement that does not follow logically from what precedes it.   Anticipation began to plague her with such ferocity that the thought of a husband, on which all her . . . more
July 31, 2008 02:25 PM EDT -- [ Listen using RealPlayer ] [ Download and listen to MP3 ] [ Subscribe to podcast ] This week's topic is a figure of speech known as synecdoche . Gordon Jarvie, in the Bloomsbury Grammar . . . more
August 31, 2007 01:47 PM EDT --    Vamoose     The verb to vamoose, "to leave hurriedly," has a full range of tenses and grammatical moods in English, and it can be used with all grammatical persons: . . . more
October 30, 2008 06:10 PM EDT -- [ Listen to 64K MP3 stream ] [ Download and listen to podcast ] [ Subscribe to podcast ] This week on Grammar Grater, we'll be looking at words that have to do with Halloween, starting with . . . more
June 11, 2008 02:32 PM EDT --   A DEFINE-A-THON is the new word game sensation created by the Editors of the American Heritage ® Dictionaries. Why are they taking us beyond the spelling bee? Because being able to SPELL . . . more
July 18, 2008 11:18 AM EDT --   COUPON A Roman might have had difficulty predicting what would become of the Latin word colaphus, which meant "a blow with the fist."   As the variety of Latin spoke in . . . more
May 11, 2007 09:40 AM EDT -- TABLOID   We often hear the complaint that factoids and sound bytes dominate news media in the 21st century, and simplistic and superficial reporting is often considered to be a malady of modern . . . more
August 07, 2008 03:24 PM EDT -- [ Listen using RealPlayer ] [ Download and listen to MP3 ] [ Subscribe to podcast ] More than 10,000 athletes from around the world are gathering in Beijing in the People's Republic of China . . . more
July 06, 2007 01:59 PM EDT -- UGLY The standard sense of the adjective ugly, “unsightly,” becomes figurative in the common expression an ugly temper. Regional American speech shared this figurative sense and makes it . . . more
September 07, 2007 03:40 PM EDT -- barracuda Barracuda are fierce-looking fish that live mostly in tropical seas like the Caribbean. They have a projecting lower jaw, and their large mouth holds two rows, one behind the other, of fanglike . . . more
December 05, 2007 01:22 PM EST -- ACRIMONY Noun   Bitter, sharp hostility, especially in speech.   Some conversations I have heard in our own country sound like old records, long-playing, left over . . . more
May 22, 2008 02:20 PM EDT --   A DEFINE-A-THON is the new word game sensation created by the Editors of the American Heritage ® Dictionaries. Why are they taking us beyond the spelling bee? Because being able to SPELL . . . more
Grammar Grater: A Box of Quackers
by Cory B.
views: 53 | rating: 10
November 20, 2008 12:39 PM EST -- [Listen to 64K MP3 stream]   [Download and listen to podcast]   [Subscribe to podcast]    Today we're discussing the etymology of a phrase that will be popping up frequently . . . more
January 30, 2008 03:28 PM EST -- IRREGARDLESS Irregardless is a word that many people mistakenly believe to be correct in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing.   The word . . . more
July 02, 2008 02:20 PM EDT --   SCHLOCK A good number of English words borrowed from Yiddish (a variety of German with an admixture of Hebrew and Slavic elements) are recognizably of foreign extraction because they begin . . . more
1 2  3  4  5  | next > 
 
Gather | People | Groups | Explore