Tag Archives: category-artsentertainment
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Words Bookworms Mispronounce Because We Read Them First
Anyone who has spent nights during their childhood huddled under a comforter with a flashlight (or more recently a flashlight app) lighting up the splayed pages of a book knows that being a bookworm helps you build the sort of vocabulary that earns you eyerolls on the playground and accolades from the teachers. Yet, dedicated bibliophiles know there’s really only one problem that comes with …
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Playful Words That Jane Austen Popularized
In her novels, Jane Austen (1775–1817) scrutinized the ways that social codes and class place constraints on individuals and relationships. Her own use of language, however, was anything but constrained. It was so playful and inventive—like tittupy, or “bouncing all around,” which a character uses to describe a rickety carriage in Northanger Abbey. While she may not have exactly coined words like tittupy, Austen’s books …
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The Meanings Behind “Harry Potter” Spells
How did J.K. Rowling come up with the names of all of those magical wizarding spells?
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Why Are Singing Groups Called “Glee Clubs”?
These infamously chipper singing groups are called glee because the melding of voices makes everyone happy, right? Actually, joy has little to do with it. Why are they really called glee clubs? Yes, one definition of glee is “open delight or pleasure,” e.g., The students ran out of the building on the last day of school with glee.Glee derives from the Old English glēo, meaning “mirth, jesting, …
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