Happy Which Word Wednesday, folks! Today’s edition I’ve titled the Superfluous Redundancies Edition to highlight a little-noticed practice in our speaking that makes for some needless repetitive phrases. Take a look at these phrases, for example: raging inferno sudden impulse respond back fuse together These are commonly used, both in…
Some dear friends of ours have twin girls. They look alike, for sure—they are twins, siblings—but because I know them well, I see the differences, however slight. I can tell them apart, and I know which name goes with which girl. Words twins are the same. They look alike, with…
Remember those public speaking classes we all took in high school and college? I remember my nervousness more than my speeches. But the preparation tips must have stuck for all of us, because most speeches have the thoughts categorized and presented one by one, starting with something like: “First of…
Happy National Running Day! The NRD campaign asks us to complete this phrase: “I run . . .” My answer? Although I run for lots of reasons, this weekend I run to raise money for Avishi, one of the girls I met on my trip to India with As Our…
Words that sound alike are easy to mix up, especially when you are speaking quickly or you are under pressure. Our brains grab for one word but spit out its second-cousin-once-removed—the words are related, but do not have the same meaning. Today’s Which Word Wednesday features one such word pair,…
Long before prescriptivists were lamenting the onset of mobile phone text-speak, there were abbreviations like laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) and scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) and USA (United States of America). Abbreviations come in two flavors: acronyms and initialisms. This week’s Which Word Wednesday looks at…
Happy Thesaurus Day! Today is the day we observe the word treasury that was written by Peter Roget, born January 18, 1779. Roget’s Thesaurus was first published in April 1852, which begs the question: What did writers do to find synonyms before then?! I, for one, am happy to be…
When I was in junior high and high school, TV shows and movies highlighted the awkward lives of the socially inept. These were lovable-yet-dorky characters like Sarah Jessica Parker’s Patty Greene in Square Pegs. At that time, being nerdy or geeky was not something to strive for. Today, being quirky…
I know, I know. It’s Christmas. The season of love and joy. So this week’s Which Word Wednesday match up is not a good fit for the intended mood of the season. But the entry caught my eye as I flipped through one of my word resource books today. And…
A few months ago, as I was editing content for a client, I came across the word healthful. I don’t see that word very often, and I wondered how it differed from healthy, so I decided to do a check on it. Since then, I’ve known the difference between the…
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