Tag Archives: language usage

Teenage, Middle-age, New Age

Posted on September 6, 2011 by

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

The Allure of Color Terms

Posted on July 21, 2010 by

I’m a little fascinated by the specific names for colors that are chosen in clothing and home furnishing catalogs (both online and paper). It would be fun to collect some of these catalogs over the past fifty years and see … Continue reading →

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