Monthly Archives: August 2011

Word Purge

Posted on August 22, 2011 by achouston

There is an online post at the British newspaper Guardian reporting on words to be excluded from new editions of dictionaries. The post invites readers to list their own choices for words they’d like removed from the English language. My … Continue reading →

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We’re All Verbs Now

Posted on August 15, 2011 by achouston

Maybe, maybe not. Are there any English speakers today who don’t accept text as a verb? It was an easy move to permit text as a verb, follownig the paradigm of other communication channel noun-verb pairs in English — the … Continue reading →

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Linguistic Asymmetries

Posted on August 3, 2011 by achouston

Have you ever noticed that, while some words which take a prefix seem to form nice pairings with opposite meaning polarity (tie/untie, compliance/noncompliance, tasteful/distasteful), other pairs don’t work this way? For example, there is nonplussed, but not plussed, insipid, but … Continue reading →

Posted in etymology, language change, Semantics, Word Formation, Word Usage | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments