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  09/10/2020       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Chris Hayes used this word in a recent broadcast and I wondered why I have not used it more. It appears only once in this (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day
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A body

  03/07/2020       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

“What could a body do?” That use of the word body was the norm for my grandmother, an Appalachian person born in 1876. In current (Continue Reading)

grammar & language change, Word of the Day

The X factor…. Malcolm or Latin?

  02/18/2020       Pat Barrett      2 Comments

So easy to ridicule liberals …. or Liberals. They are now taking to saying “Latinx” instead of Latin, Latino, or Latina. Seems silly, right? Just (Continue Reading)

grammar & language change, Uncategorized, Word of the Day

Great example of British misunderstanding of “gotten”

  01/29/2020       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Here is a writer education in English (I don’t think it is her native language but her writing indicates native-like command) who does something I (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

The transmogrification of a word

  01/11/2020       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I started to title this bugaloo but thought better of it. I even deliberately misspelled it here. The Bugaloo was a dance originating in the (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

he up and left or he up and left?

  12/22/2019       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

The other day, Clapper, the former CIA chief, said, “He upped and did something.” In my speech it would be, “He up and did …..” (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

Music to my Yiddishe ears

  12/15/2019       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

My sister-in-law has a granddaughter about 4 who told her that her friends Caleb and Sarah do not celebrate Christmas, they celebrate Harmonica.

Word of the Day

Delicate meaning of a word

  12/03/2019       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Here is a brief discussion on the Urdu list re a particular word: “”””Yes, exactly. Agree with Anjum Altaf Sahab here. The current use of (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

What did you call me?

  10/27/2019       Pat Barrett      2 Comments

Try to think of a word, a label, an epithet, that can be applied to White people with anything like the force the N word (Continue Reading)

View from under the Bus, Word of the Day

An elusive word

  10/24/2019       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

While writing, I wanted to use a word that would be the action of someone intimidated, even frightened, made anxious by something. The word that (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

Nexus

  09/14/2019       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Definition of nexus (from on-line Merriam-Webster) 1 : CONNECTION, LINK the nexus between teachers and students also : a causal link the nexus between poverty (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

Urban = Black

  08/03/2019       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Again I heard a speaker use the term “urban” as a synonym for Black in the ethnic sense. Earlier, the mayor of Memphis had responded (Continue Reading)

grammar & language change, Word of the Day

mishegoss alert

  06/24/2019       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Usually Yiddishisms don’t find their way into this blog since only the German element of the language is known to me at all (except ‘balabusta’). (Continue Reading)

Politics, Word of the Day

Metaphorical tropes

  06/07/2019       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I think I have the terms right. Listening to Admiral Stavridis on Morning Joe I noted his extensive use of these. I always thought expressions (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

Word of the day

  02/16/2019       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

The word is “raise” used intransitively. As I was fantasizing about having quad 60 machine guns mounted under the hood of my car to deploy (Continue Reading)

Linguistics, Word of the Day

town and gown

  02/10/2019       Pat Barrett      1 Comment

For some reason I wanted to know in French the expression “town and gown,” maybe because I’m reading a book in French discussing the university (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

Family only words

  12/03/2018       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

In my family as a kid we used the word breakfast food for cereal even when we ate it at night before bed (a custom (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

cc and stenopad

  11/24/2018       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

In our own time we see the way words or parts of words (and in this one case an abbreviation) survive when the original meaning (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

Skitter

  11/14/2018       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Define skitter without demonstrating it, i.e. using just words. Great word, chiseling precisely a type of movement. Think of a spider skittering across the floor. (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

Snarky

  11/03/2018       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

This word, so new to me, goes back to 1906 and has an earlier history as meaning ‘annoy’. Its use has sky-rocketed recently with a (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

Watching the mountain being born

  04/30/2018       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Long time, no WOD. Here’s making up for it: Everyone remembers the amazing growth of a mountain right out of the earth as we watched. (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

Swoll

  09/11/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

In school, I noticed a lot of the kids were using an old past participle, “swoll”, to describe what we called buff, i.e. a bit (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

wonky and random

  12/21/2016       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Wonky is a new word for me and random is not, but the meaning of both have changed. Wonky means someone obsessed with the minutiae (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day
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