Tag Archives: slang
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Y.E.S: These Words Are Acronyms
Maybe you already knew RADAR actually stands for "radio detecting and ranging," but what about these other acronyms hiding in your everyday speech?
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More “Man” Words in the Making
As we get deeper into this new millennium, one that we like to think might free us from things like racial and gender inequities and stereotypes, some interesting “man-” words have found their way into English. What’s going on? Are we widening the gender chasm, at least linguistically? Manly, Mean, or Meh? The proliferation of male “gender marked” nouns, like man bun, man purse, or …
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What’s for Sale in Pot Shops?
Wherever you fall on the issue of whether marijuana should be legalized, the topic is hot news and marijuana shops may pop up in your neighborhood. Do you know what’s for sale in pot shops, also called dispensaries?
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You Didn’t Invent That: Charles Dickens and Boredom
Charles Dickens is often given credit for inventing words that he was not the first to use. This is not surprising, if only because he was much more widely read than some of the people who had used these words before him. Dickens was also far more attuned to the language of the streets than were most of his contemporaries, and so his writing contains …
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Lexical Investigations: Goggle
A motley combination of Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and Germanic dialects, the English language (more or less as we know it) coalesced between the 9th and 13th centuries. Since then, it has continued to import and borrow words and expressions from around the world, and the meanings have mutated. (Awesome and awful once meant nearly the same thing.) Some specimens in the English vocabulary have followed unusually …
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What are Informal, Nonstandard, and Slang Words?
The status or stylistic labels informal and nonformal as well as colloquial are terms applied to written usage at the lowest level on the scale of formality.
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Bond Ambition: “Squads” and “Squad Goals” Explained
There’s one phrase motivating social media users everywhere. Maybe you’ve heard of relationship goals, or workout goals, but what about “squad goals?” Here’s the rundown.