"They" is Merriam-Webster's 2019 word of the year

Posted on 12/10/2019 at 07:57 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Merriam-Webster’s word of the year is the shortest one so far this season: they. But its brevity belies its complexity....

Categories: Today in Books

Tagged As: Just for fun, Language

"Existential" is Dictionary.com's word of the year

Posted on 12/09/2019 at 12:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

At first blush, Dictionary.com’s 2019 word of the year seems to be following the doom-and-gloom theme set by other dictionaries’...

Categories: Today in Books

Tagged As: Just for fun, Language

Oxford Dictionaries: "Climate emergency" is the word of the year

Posted on 11/20/2019 at 04:02 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

The next word of the year from a dictionary is along the same theme as the previous one. Oxford Dictionaries...

Tagged As: Just for fun, Language

Collins Dictionary reveals its word of the year for 2019

Posted on 11/07/2019 at 10:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Collins Dictionary has chosen “climate strike” as its word of the year for 2019. You can probably either guess what...

Categories: Today in Books

Tagged As: Just for fun, Language

Merriam-Webster adds 530-plus words to the dictionary

Posted on 09/21/2019 at 08:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Merriam-Webster added over 530 words to its dictionary this past week. As usual, some were familiar to us — vacay,...

Tagged As: Diversity, Language, Politics

Filmmaker discusses new documentary "The Miracle of the Little Prince"

Posted on 08/30/2019 at 04:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

The new documentary The Miracle of the Little Prince is being screened tonight at the Film Forum in New York...

Categories: Today in Books

Tagged As: Children's literature, Classic literature, Language, Movie adaptation

New study analyzes adjectives in 3.5 million English books

Posted on 08/30/2019 at 02:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Talk about a serious stack of books: Researchers recently analyzed 3.5 million works of fiction and nonfiction to see how...

Categories: Today in Books

Tagged As: Language, The Digital Reader

New book aims to explain the nuances of online communication

Posted on 08/11/2019 at 04:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

No matter how tech-savvy you are or aren’t, you know that digital communication holds its own set of rules and...

Categories: Author Interview

Tagged As: Author interview, Language, Nonfiction, NPR

Word wars: When the pen was more powerful than the sword

Posted on 06/22/2019 at 04:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Next time you hear someone dismiss a language debate with “oh, semantics,” consider showing them a recent article from the...

Categories: Today in Books

Tagged As: Just for fun, Language, The Guardian

The Scripps National Spelling Bee has 8 winners -- really!

Posted on 05/31/2019 at 10:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

The New York Times headline, which we wish we’d written on our own, was “at a loss for words.” The...

Categories: Today in Books

Tagged As: Just for fun, Language