Every once in a while a show comes along and completely transforms bits and pieces of the English language. Parks and Recreation, we’re looking at you. Sure, Friends did it with words and phrases like pivot and how you doing? The Office turned the phrase that’s what she said into one of the longest running jokes in pop culture. But NBC’s Parks And Recreation has …
When surprising, shocking, or scary things like the COVID-19 pandemic happen, it’s sometimes difficult to find the words to talk about it. You may find yourself straining to remember terms you learned a long time ago, or repeating the same words and phrases over and over again because you just don’t know what else to say. While the world is quarantined due to the novel …
What do you do when you want to say “goodbye” to something (or someone), but don’t really feel the good part of that sentiment? Whether you’re late to a meeting and stuck on the phone, or just nodding your head in mock agreement as someone prattles on endlessly (with no clue they lost you 10 minutes ago), we’d like to offer you advice. It’s true, …
Why is everyone suddenly tweeting about OK boomer? What is that Baby Yoda meme all up in our feeds about? And who are Becky and Karen, anyways? Oh, we’ve got this. We love keeping up with the latest terms in slang and getting to the bottom of the funniest, strangest, and, yes, thorniest trends in pop culture and social media. We love it so much, …
Goodbye, 2019. Hello, 2020! Well, not just yet. As we look ahead to what the new year will bring, we also reflect back on the previous one—and at Dictionary.com, that means analyzing the top words that sent users to our site in 2019. We dived into our data and identified the five words that trended the most each month. And how did we measure those …
This week, Lady Gaga lit up Twitter with a simple question: “What’s fortnight?” What’s fortnight — Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) October 15, 2019 As the viral response to her tweet made plain, Gaga had apparently confused fortnight with the massively popular online video game—and homonym—Fortnite. Gaga’s question also lit up searches on Dictionary.com for fortnight, which, compared to data from, well, a fortnight ago, went up …
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 …
How did J.K. Rowling come up with the names of all of those magical wizarding spells?
We’re back celebrating our Word of the Day! Because there’s plenty left to reminisce about from the last 10 years. In Part II of our lexical stroll down memory lane (see Part I, 1999–2008, here), we will be examining word selections from 2009–2018, unearthing serendipitous synchronicities and offering perspicacious perspectives into notable events and trends of the last decade. Oops, just kidding, because our first …
