The question of whether to use disc or disk can be a bit circular: in some cases, one is definitely preferred, but in many cases their use overlaps—meaning they’re often interchangeable. This is because both words typically refer to something round and flat (though not always, as we’ll see). The difference, when there is one, usually just depends on what the established preference is. The …
If you’ve ever purchased a product, read a book, or watched a movie (read: everyone currently on this page), then you’ve likely seen four symbols time and time again: ™, ®, ©, and ℠. They can be large or close to microscopic. No matter how small, however, they are powerful and convey a lot of meaning. So what’s the deal with each, and what makes …
If you sail off the coast of northwestern Europe and keep to the east of Ireland, you’ll find yourself in a country rich with history and royal magnificence. But what, exactly, is this country called? England? The United Kingdom? Great Britain? Or just Britain? Are any of these names correct? Are all of them? In this article, we’ll take a tour of the British Isles …
An Anatomy Of Cocktail Names Through History by John M. Cunningham The cocktail renaissance of the 21st century, in which craft-cocktail bars have proliferated and classic cocktails are back in fashion, has proved that there is a true art to inventing and mixing drinks. But, what about naming them? For some bartenders, bestowing a name upon one of their newly devised concoctions can be the …
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Legally, to trademark something means to make it so that only one company can make money off of something with that name. You might not realize it, but many of the seemingly generic words we use all of the time are or were registered trademarks. This is often a problem for companies who want to avoid their lucrative trademarks being killed by “genericide,” meaning they …
Whether you start your morning with coffee or tea—it’s part of who you are, but how much do you know about either caffeinated beverage? Where did tea come from? Tea comes from the Chinese d’a, and transformed into tea or ch’a depending on where the drink migrated. All tea comes from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant and the six basic varieties are white, yellow, …
Do you know all of your colors? No, we aren’t just talking about red and green. We mean color words like quercitron, puce, and dragon’s blood. There are so many unique and fascinating words that describe shades of color in our language. If you stop at the basics, you might just miss out on some of the most vivid and historically interesting shades that exist. …
Don’t mortify yourself by saying “fo’ shizzle” to someone from Chicago or by expecting Hi-Tek slang to be recognized outside of the Cincinnati metropolitan area. (No offense, Nati residents.) Rap slang can be as hyper-regional as sports alliances. With the help of M.I.M.’s lyrical breakdown about how each part of the US raps, we created an atlas of five notable words from each region. East …
Chances are, when you started reading you encountered plenty of new words. That’s great for you—you were learning, after all—but here’s the catch. Your skill at pronouncing these words didn’t necessarily keep up with your reading skills, leading to some funny mishaps. Did colonel’s pronunciation confuse you? What about choir? Or hors’d’oeuvres? (Did you try “horse divorce” or “hers dervs”?) This might seem silly now, but …
![List of words in white outline, with central word in bold purple font, on lilac background: “pseudonym, synonym, caconym, inaptonym [in bold], metonym, backronym, retronym"](https://www.dictionary.com/e/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20220426_NYM_800x800-380x380.png)
We love to look at words, and today the name of the game is words that end in -nym. The ending -nym or, most often, -onym is a combining form from Greek that means “name.” Apparently, we love naming names because there are a whole bunch of words that end in -nym. Some of these words are pretty common, but we managed to find quite …
