The blues got you today? Or is that upcoming speech giving you the jitters? As unpleasant as it is, it is OK. Sudden bouts of gloominess and uneasiness are completely normal responses to upsetting or potentially dangerous circumstances, whether real or imagined. Thankfully, they are short-lived. They ebb and flow and vanish together with the triggering event. We all have bad days every now and …
We heard it over and over again: 2020 was an unprecedented year. (Although 2021 is certainly doing its best to pick up where 2020 left off …) Our users agreed, choosing the word unprecedented as the People’s Choice Word of the Year. 2020 was, without a doubt, an extraordinary year—and it set off an extraordinary year for language, too, including compelling us to name the …
Every four years, the presidential inauguration captures the attention of people in the United States. Some tune in to the televised event for the eye-catching ceremony, crowds, and parties. Others are most looking forward to the swearing-in. Yet regardless of what people tune in for, the whole swearing in part is sometimes confused with the inauguration itself. Which makes you wonder: what is the inauguration and …
On January 6, 2021, a mob at a protest rally in support of Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol building on the day Congress was set to certify the electoral vote count to confirm Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. As people processed this shocking event, they debated how to refer to the participants in the siege. Should the people who invaded the Capitol, even if …
Homophones: love them or hate them, they’re everywhere. These two are a great example. They may sound the same, but their meanings couldn’t be any more different. Assent is a word that indicates agreement or approval. Ascent refers to an upward movement. Let’s take a closer look. What does assent mean? As a verb, assent means to agree or to give in. When used as …
People in the Western world debate many things, from whether cheesecake is actually a cake to which airplane seat is the best—aisle or the window? What year it is generally does not fall into the category of debated facts. However, how to refer to said year and the past years from ancient history—BC and AD or BCE and CE—does. Both sets of abbreviations have history. One …
On January 6, 2021, interest in the words insurrection, sedition, treason, and coup all surged on on Dictionary.com after a mob of supporters of Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol building on the day Congress was set to certify the electoral vote count to confirm Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. Many journalists, political analysts, and politicians all used these very serious—and consequential—words to refer to …
COVID-19 has set off many unprecedented events that will most likely change the world forever. Fortunately, they haven’t all been bad: the virus led to the remarkable development of vaccines at a pace and scale the likes of which have never before been seen in history. Both the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the Moderna vaccine use a relatively new technology that has been approved for the …
Call it remote learning, online learning, distance learning or homeschooling, there are millions of parents across the country whose children no longer head off to school but rather wake up within the walls of their virtual classroom. While there have always been those parents who choose homeschooling for their children’s education, the COVID-19 pandemic has chosen that option for many who never dreamed they’d (and …
If you’re anything like us, you collect words the same way that other people collect coins or Pokémon cards. You think about words while you’re dreaming, and you’re constantly on the hunt for new words during the day. You underline new vocabulary in books, you keep a note in your smartphone of new words you heard on a podcast, and your friends are afraid to …
Weekends are when many Americans gather in their respective houses of worship and repeat the same word: amen. But, what does the word mean? And, why do people say it? The origins of amen Amen is commonly used after a prayer, creed, or other formal statement. It is spoken to express solemn ratification or agreement. It is used adverbially to mean “certainly,” “it is so,” …
If you’re a parent who’s worried about your kids getting enough learning time right now, you aren’t alone. The pandemic has impacted kids in a major way, and most moms and dads are struggling to find ways to keep their kids engaged with distance learning and off of Nintendo Switch or Netflix for most of the day. One easy solution? Make learning fun by investing …
