by Rory Gory Pansexual, skoliosexual, asexual biromantic. How young queer people are identifying their sexual and romantic orientations is expanding—as is the language they use to do it. More than 1 in 5 LGBTQ youth use words other than lesbian, gay, and bisexual to describe their sexualities, according to a new report based on findings from The Trevor Project’s National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental …
by Rory GoryIn a recent study, “Diversity of Youth Sexual Orientation,” The Trevor Project found that one in five LGBTQ youth are using different words to describe their sexual and romantic identities and orientations, including terms like asexual and aromantic. (Read more about this study and those new words here.) But, there are many persistent and painful myths and misunderstandings surrounding sexual orientation, romantic attraction, …
Dictionary.com’s United States of Diversity series by Taneesh Khera In 2019, the United Nations is raising awareness about the alarming loss of many of the world’s languages through its International Year of Indigenous Languages. In honor of that initiative, we are shining the spotlight on the languages of the Sioux, and the growing movement to preserve and reinvigorate these rich but endangered tongues. Where did …
by Rory Gory The letter X is often used to represent the unknown or the indescribable. In English, there are so few words beginning with X that in Samuel Johnson’s famous early dictionary, X was defined as, “a letter, which, though found in Saxon words, begins no word in the English language.” The mathematician and philosopher René Descartes used the letter X to represent variable …
What Makes A Policy Program Name Stick? by John M. Cunningham In the 1910s there was Woodrow Wilson’s New Freedom. The 1960s brought us Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society. And now, with the help of Senator Ed Markey and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Green New Deal has become the talk of the Beltway. Since the early 20th century, presidents and other politicians in the United …
by Rory Gory Bisexual people make up 52 percent of the lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) community, but in recent years, the words to describe the identity of someone who is attracted to more than one gender have become increasingly complex. As the conversation around gender identity has expanded, so, too, has the language to describe both gender and sexuality as well as the complex …
by Kimberly C. Ellis, PhD I remember that Sunday so clearly. I saw something called “#RedWedding” trending on Twitter and when I clicked on the hashtag, I discovered it was related to the hit television show Game of Thrones already into its third season. I decided that night I would find out about the show, watch it for the first time, and learn about this Red …
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 …
by Nicole Holliday When I was a kid, I always just assumed that everyone in the world called people like me “mixed,” because in the 1990s in central Ohio, where I grew up, mixed almost always referred to folks like me, who had one black parent and one white parent. The community I grew up in had very few people who identified as anything other …
by Taneesh KheraWhen you picture a wave, what do you think of? I bet you see a body of water, possibly a lake, but more likely an ocean. A shore might come to mind, as would sand and beaches, and maybe a surfer or a boat or ship. Another possibility, not altogether different, is a hand saying hello, waving goodbye. If you consume much news, …
By Jane Solomon The word influencer has been used in English since the mid-1600s, though of course back then it wasn’t a job title. In recent years, the term has become a catch-all for a certain kind of career track that is at the center of a burgeoning but profitable industry. As influencer continues to expand in English and pull new terms and meanings into …
by Taneesh Khera In this column, we travel the US exploring the minority languages, dialects, and people who call it home. Then, we step back to see what effects they might have on society at large. Today, the spotlight is on slam poetry. What is slam poetry? I figured I’d go to the Starry Plough in Berkeley, California to find out. Started in 1999, they …