Sample Blind Tasting for free
Read sample chapters of Blind Tasting at Smashwords
Now available as an audiobook! "Great book, a must read" -- Rebecca's Reads (five stars)
Word of the Day
LEGERDEMAIN (Noun, English) Skilled, dexterous use of the hands when performing magical tricks. Has also taken on a pejorative meaning of deceit or trickery. Note: Cited originally in English during the 16th century. From the French phrase 'léger de main' (light of hand).
-
Recent Posts
-
Recent Tweets
- @_ConnerBrown_ @jack Logic proofs, maths, hypotheses (empirical or theoretical), moral values, personal beliefs are… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 11 hours ago
- RT @36ademcan36: The evolution of crew control panel over the decades Pic 1 : Apollo Pic 2: Space Shuttle Pic 3: SpaceX’s Dragon #NASA #S… 2 days ago
- RT @SpaceX: Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon will lift off from Launch Complex 39A – the same place Saturn V launched humanity to the Moon and from… 2 days ago
- @stclairashley https://t.co/Solpk8tW9e 2 days ago
- @MrDanZak @ScottAdamsSays She held her dog in a choking position long time, looked cruel to me as a long-time pet o… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 3 days ago
- @elizaorlins Terrible stuff. Poor dog is being semi-choked, too, the way she is yanking him up. What's wrong with this person. 3 days ago
- @ScottAdamsSays Hi Scott, I follow you - saw this weird pinned tweet for you yesterday. Anyone else see this? Thx. https://t.co/rBva0Nag4U 6 days ago
- @PaulSkallas Sure does. Set down like a piece of trash, its form has no relationship with the natural setting. 1 week ago
Topics
Top Posts
Archives
Word Travels
Category Archives: Word Formation
More Linguistic Asymmetries
The English prefix un- comes directly from Old English (and shares a common Indo-European root with Latin in- and Greek a-) Prefixed to an adjective A, the resulting new word means ‘not A’ and can convey either positive or negative … Continue reading
We’re All Verbs Now
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
Posted in language change, Word Formation, Word Usage
Tagged acronyms, English verbs, language change, word formation
Leave a comment
Linguistic Asymmetries
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 back-formation, language change, recombobulation area, semantic pairs
2 Comments
Gates
The word gate is a good old English word, the form being geat in Old English (plural geatu) and whose meaning was ‘an opening or entrance’. A watergate (from the 15th century) is a channel for water; the first element … Continue reading
What’s in a Name’s Ending?
Have you ever wondered why we say Californian and Bostonian, but then say New Yorker, Londoner and Midwesterner? A friend recently used the term Kendallites to refer to habitues of Kendall Square, Cambridge MA. I understood perfectly what he meant … Continue reading
Freewheeling Expression
Do printed dictionaries still matter? I doubt most people use them much nowadays to check spellings — spellcheckers are nearly ubiquitous in word-processing software of all types. There are also myriad sources for usage examples, including many online resources that … Continue reading
Posted in Word Formation, Word Usage, writing
Tagged language and technology, word formation
2 Comments
Sportaholics and Sexavores
Just back from travels, so a short post today. There is a nice case of a newly productive suffix in English worth noting: –vore. In the past there was a limited set that includes the well-known carnivore, herbivore, omnivore. Recently … Continue reading
