Just about every family has a word that makes sense only to them. Said by children, weird uncles, or parents in the heat of the moment, these words were coined when someone goofed … and yet somehow for these families they stuck. There’s even an official term for this phenomenon: malapropism, a noun that means “an act or habit of misusing words ridiculously, especially by …
Want your child to stand out on the preschool roster? Going with a strong noun name is an all-American tradition. Below are some names that you may not have even realized were nouns. And, with a little help from Babylist (who we love because they named the dictionary and thesaurus as some of the top ways to pick a baby name), we’ve ranked awesome noun-inspired names …
by Taneesh Khera Dictionary.com’s United States of Diversity You’ve stumbled onto our United States of Diversity series, welcome! If you don’t already know, here we explore a minority language or dialect in the country, and this episode’s no different. Does your keeat sit an the meeat? Or, maybe you wait for the boss down the black? Do you cal your mam an Sundays? If you …
Many idioms—expressions that are not taken literally—are so old and so familiar that we don’t think twice about using them. We say, for example, “it’s raining cats and dogs” to indicate that it’s pouring outside, and “comfortable as an old shoe” to explain an easy and familiar relationship. We can trace the etymology of some idioms to books and sayings that were first used hundreds …
Sometimes a dictionary is too heavy to carry around for some light reading and too daunting to listen to as an audiobook. For all your language needs from etymology to grammar to more creative ways to curse, check out our recommendations below for the best language podcasts. And, because this is an article about language podcasts, we can’t help but mention our newly-launched Dictionary.com Word …
Have you ever wondered how to pluralize some of the most common words you use everyday? Some plural forms are pretty strange . . . and most people don’t know them. Take our quiz below to see if you’re up on some of the most obscure plural words in the English language. If the quiz doesn’t display, please tryopeningin the Chrome browser.
Most people know a handful of official languages in countries around the world—French in France, Italian in Italy, Russian in Russia, Spanish in Spain. But, those are really easy, and with 195 countries and 7,000 different languages, the handful you think you know is really only a teeny-tiny sampling! So, try your hand at guessing the official languages of these 20 countries. Some of them …
Dictionary.com’s United States of Diversity series by Taneesh Khera Music resounds from every direction. Drums, brass, and strings clash against the cacophony of song and dance. The crowd, as diverse as the Black, Native, and European people who’ve called the area home for centuries. Smells waft in with the sound: from street-side vendors, gumbo, jambalaya, and cajun and creole spices you can taste in the …
What is ASL or American Sign Language? American Sign Language, or ASL, is the visual signing language used by the Deaf community in the United States. English speakers in Canada and in a handful of other counties use ASL, too. Interestingly, those countries include the Philippines, Singapore, Jamaica, China, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cambodia, and Bolivia—a varied group. There are other sign languages …
Why does France hate English loanwords? France has a très rich literary and linguistic culture. So, it’s not surprising that their government takes a dim view to any intrusions made to it by, er, outside influences. As an article in The Guardian notes, “France’s identity has long been bound up with its language, more so possibly than anywhere else.” They also add that “France is …
