Category Archives: Word Usage

Seman-tech Changes?

Posted on March 14, 2013 by achouston

 We know that languages change over time. Some of these changes are shifts in word usage and word senses. The world of technology changes rapidly, and it’s no surprise that word senses might reflect that. Three English nouns have caught … Continue reading →

Posted in Internet, language and social media, language change, Meaning Change, Word Usage | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Word Jumbles #11

Posted on July 2, 2012 by achouston

DIPARS ERUSIFS ETARING ONORISE REDSET Solutions can be found on the Answers page.

Posted in Word Usage | 2 Comments

The Hidden Past of Words: English final -y

Posted on June 27, 2012 by achouston

Consider the following list of everyday English words:  memory, happy, baby, crazy, victory, city, silly, puppy, army For starters, they all end in -y and they can be grouped further as nouns (memory, baby, victory, city, puppy, army) or adjectives … Continue reading →

Posted in etymology, history of language, language change, Meaning Change, Word Usage | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Glass, Bamboo, Curry

Posted on April 4, 2012 by achouston

I was intrigued by a recent question posted at Quora about whether there is a bamboo ceiling in American corporate culture, parallel to the idea of a glass ceiling, but with reference to the experience of Asians’ efforts to become promoted to … Continue reading →

Posted in Meaning Change, metonymy, social context of language, Word Usage | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Plural Logic

Posted on January 11, 2012 by achouston

Forming the plural of a noun in English is pretty easy — mostly you add final -s to the singular form (with occasional spelling modifications:  story -> stories).  Linguists refer to nouns that form their plurals with final -s as … Continue reading →

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More Linguistic Asymmetries

Posted on October 21, 2011 by achouston

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 →

Posted in Word Formation, word meaning, Word Usage | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Teenage, Middle-age, New Age

Posted on September 6, 2011 by achouston

English can form adjectives from the past participles of verbs. Consider: break:broken  the vase was broken -> the broken vase fall:fallen   his popularity has fallen recently -> his fallen popularity bake:baked  the bread was baked in a brick oven -> … Continue reading →

Posted in language change, language variation, Word Usage | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

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 →

Posted in Semantics, social context of language, Word Usage | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

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