Although male names like Aiden, Jayden, and Santiago lead in popularity among various ethnic and social groups in the U.S., the name John comes only after James as the most popular in the total population according to 1990 census figures. The long-standing popularity of John has spawned numerous expressions in English, not all of them … Read more
Empirical is an adjective that describes a study or technique that relies upon observation and physical evidence as opposed to theory. It comes from Latin empiricus, “a physician guided by experience.” “Empirical evidence” is a source of knowledge resulting from observation or experimentation. The most common use of empirical in writing for the general reader … Read more
The Internet is littered with vocabulary tests that appeal to the small portion of the population interested in such things. To date, one of these tests has been taken by at least two million people and has accumulated some interesting data. I discovered the site by way of an article in the Economist. According to … Read more
Way back in elementary school when we learned about feudalism, we were told that the medieval vassal paid homage to his lord. My teachers pronounced the word homage: [hom-ij]. Note: Some English speakers don’t pronounce the h in this homage. When I became interested in movie criticism, I came across the word homage in connection … Read more
Thanks to today’s instant communication, words used by one blogger or celebrity catch on at an astounding rate, spilling over into advertising, entertainment, and website comments. One evening I became aware of two television ads airing back to back. One was for a telephone service; the other for a car. Both hammered the word crazy … Read more
Our word true is one of the oldest in the language. It may derive from a Proto-Indo-European word for tree. A well-rooted tree is strong, steadfast and firm. By the time the word entered Old English as triewe, it had acquired the meaning “faithful” or “trustworthy.” New connotations continued to attach to true. The sense … Read more
I was only half-listening to an economic analyst being interviewed on NPR, but shot to attention when he said that some economic event was “a more strong indicator” of something or other. Knowing that being interviewed and talking off the cuff can be stressful for people not used to it, I turned to the web … Read more
Besides its use as a simple adjective meaning, “of the highest excellence, excelling all others in quality,” the word best serves as other parts of speech and occurs in many English idioms. As a verb, to best means to get the better of, get an advantage over, outdo; to outreach, outwit, circumvent. “Jack’s wife always bests … Read more
Raucous /ˈrɔkəs/ is an adjective used to describe the loud harsh sound of voices or the cry of birds or animals. It can also be applied to boisterous, noisy, rowdy, disorderly behavior. Raucous entered the language in the18th century from a Latin word meaning “hoarse, harsh, rough. In political writing, this adjective is added so … Read more
I’ve just discovered an online time suck that is not only addictive to the language lover, but a source of writerly ideas. It’s the Google N-gram Viewer. N-grams are drawn from a text or speech corpus that shows how the frequency of a word or phrase changes over time. The corpus for the Google N-gram … Read more
One of the most noticeable differences between U.S. and British spelling is that of pairs like honor, honour and glamor, glamour. The dropping of the u in such words is often attributed to the progressive thinking of American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758-1843), but Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) thought of it first. As a printer, Franklin had … Read more
Although “blessed” by Fowler and the Chicago Manual of Style, the serial comma is readily dropped by a growing number of writers who prefer the advice given in the AP Style Guide: Use commas to separate elements in a series, but do not put a comma before the conjunction in a simple series: The flag … Read more