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Dictionary (n): Book explaining the words of a language
Has my dictionary become obsolete, or have I? (“Well, yes,” I hear you murmur.) Okay, so my Oxford English Dictionary is the sixth edition, c. 1976, but my kids were in school by then, so how can it...
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Merry Christmas and Other Oxymorons
oxymoron - noun: a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect; a contradiction of terms. Hands up, all of you who are feeling merry at the...
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Plumbing: The Metaphor
Have you any idea how many plumbing metaphors there are? Neither do I. But I was amazed to discover that you could simply google “plumbing metaphors” and there were pages of sites that addressed the...
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There’s a Bathroom on the Right
Ah, yes. That great line from the Creedence Clearwater Revival song, Bad Moon Rising. Or not. The line is actually “There’s a bad moon on the rise,” but it has been widely mis-heard as There’s a...
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Shaped Like an Almond
Dictionary.com Word of the Day Sunday November 25, 2012 amygdaliform \uh-MIG-duh-luh-fawrm, adjective: Shaped like an almond. Amygdaliform derives from the Greek amygdale, “almond.” -form is the common...
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Colour Me EmPurpled
Ah, c’mon. This is getting sillier by the day. I thought Dictionary.com had outdone themselves with their selection of amygdaliform as a recent Word of the day. Now they are giving us — are you...
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Goodbye Rotten Penmanship!
My penmanship is so bad that if I’d been born before typewriters I could never have become a writer. I’ve always had rotten penmanship. So do my kids, so I’m guessing it’s genetic. I hate to have to...
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Navajo Star Wars and Wind Talkers
What a great idea! — the Navajo Nation is beginning work on a project to dub the 1977 movie, Star Wars, into Navajo as a means of helping to preserve its traditional language. It is believed that...
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And the Word Is…
Before I get into the discussion of certain words, I need to offer a bit of context. Why do I need context? Well, I’m not really sure, but it seems appropriate somehow. You see, the correct use of...
View Article“To Kill A Mockingbird” and Nelle Harper Lee
How long has it been since you read/re-read/or watched the movie To Kill a Mockingbird? Too long, probably. It’s something we all ought to re-visit periodically, in whatever form suits you best....
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