GeekDad Daily Deal: A Lifetime Subscription to uTalk Language Education
Learn a language with a Lifetime Subscription to uTalk Language Education!
Continue ReadingLearn a language with a Lifetime Subscription to uTalk Language Education!
Continue ReadingYou know the saying about how the journey is part of the gift? Well, I’ve been trying to use that philosophy to teach my kids Hindi.
Continue ReadingDespite living in Cleveland for most of my life, I’m still considered foreign. It rankles, and made me realize I’d rather be called colored.
Continue ReadingToday’s Word Nerd installment is a somewhat rare type, where a common word and an old and obscure one share the same origin, and the old word only survives because it’s used in a common phrase. Load and lode.
Continue ReadingIn a recent conversation on Facebook, I saw someone discussing the current presidential campaign, in which he referred to the fact that Ted Cruz was born in Canada, but his mother is an American, and therefore Cruz has “duel citizenship.” Naturally a Word Nerd installment was called for. Dual and duel.
Continue ReadingToday we have another one of those word pairs that gets mixed up more often than one might expect, and the mix-up seems to only go one way. “Vogue” rhymes with “rogue” and both are spelled with the same ending, but nobody ever spells it “vouge.” I suspect people see “rouge” and read it as “rogue.”
Continue ReadingCome and listen and we’ll tell a tale of tails. Today’s Word Nerd is yet another of those sets of words that autocorrect and spellcheck will completely ignore.
Continue ReadingOxford Dictionaries have picked their Word of 2015. And it’s not Word.
Continue ReadingToday’s Word Nerd topic is one that’s become so ubiquitous that it even turns up among political pundits. Last month, Chuck Todd of Meet the Press suggested to Senator Bernie Sanders that they should do an interview in which they could “do the gambit of issues,” and the nation’s English teachers wept.
Continue ReadingLanguage changes over time, but no one should be excused for saying they “could care less.” The recent ‘xkcd’ seems to imply I’m a jerk for not letting this phrase pass. I respectfully disagree.
Continue ReadingFor today’s Word Nerd, we have an odd one: a case of a made-up word taking the place of the word it’s meant to imitate. I can’t think of another example of a trademark taking the place of its homophone in popular usage. We’ll look at Segue and Segway.
Continue ReadingToday’s Word Nerd topic is a pair of words with several definitions and too many pronunciations. We’ll look at all the permutations of base and bass.
Continue ReadingToday we discuss minding our manners… and our manors.
Continue ReadingEvery so often, somebody will email me about words and meanings. Sometimes it’s a suggestion for words that they’ve seen misused (most recently, invasive when evasive was meant), sometimes it’s a question. Recently, my friend Sara Mallory sent a Facebook message asking about today’s words. What’s the difference between them?
Continue ReadingToday’s set of words touches on a sad bit of history; often in the past (and even in the present day in some places) miners were often minors, though minors were not always miners.
Continue ReadingToday’s Word Nerd topic is one of those cases where a single word has split into two terms, with a difference in spelling to parallel the difference in meaning: mantel and mantel.
Continue ReadingToday’s words are somewhat similar, in that both are about drawing attention and both terms have to do with senses; one is a bright light, the other a strong smell. Flair and flare.
Continue ReadingThis week’s Word Nerd subject is another of those cases where using the wrong one can result in a sentence that says almost the exact opposite of what was meant. Defuse and diffuse.
Continue ReadingThis week’s Word Nerd topic is an example of that rare bird, the antonym, which is defined as “two words that are opposites,” which makes it a little comical to see this error in action. Accept and except.
Continue ReadingHere’s another Word Nerd pair that turns up with alarming regularity; is it possible that some people don’t know they are two different words? Anecdote and antidote.
Continue ReadingToday’s pair of words is uniquely American; the British are sensible enough to spell both words the same way. We have vice and vise, but in England, it’s vice and vice. If you’re British, you can ignore this week’s installment if you like.
Continue ReadingFor today’s Word Nerd topic, we’ll look at a word we swiped from another language and have since abused mercilessly, including a whole lot of attempts at what the academics call “invented spelling.” Viola and voila.
Continue ReadingToday’s Word Nerd pair actually makes it into print every so often, usually with amusing results for those of us who get it. This is a case where using the wrong word can really change the meaning of a sentence. Elicit and illicit.
Continue ReadingThis week’s Word Nerd is one of those that actually surprised me; I thought that because the two are relatively harder to spell than most of our frequently-confused words, fewer people would mess them up. Of course, the fact that they evolved from different conjugations of the same Latin word may have something to do with the confusion.
Continue ReadingThis week’s Word Nerd is another that I’ve seen recently on Facebook, and it may be yet another autocorrect failure; perhaps your iPhone would prefer you discuss Wonder Woman rather than narcotics. It’s an example of that old nemesis, the silent e. Heroin and heroine.
Continue ReadingThis week, Word Nerd looks at two words that are often mixed up; both are associated with speed, but in entirely different ways. Hurdle and hurtle.
Continue ReadingThe New Year typically brings thoughts of change and new beginnings. Sometimes people look forward to these things, but sometimes they approach them with hesitation, and when they do, some of them use one of today’s words when they actually mean the other.
Continue ReadingMerry Christmas! Today’s Word Nerd is holiday-themed because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Egg nog may have been involved. As it happens, both of these words apply to the holiday season. Presence and presents.
Continue ReadingToday’s Word Nerd is not a terribly common one, though it pops up from time to time. Maybe it’s due to autocorrect, or maybe it’s apathy, but it’s one I’ve seen a few times online, usually in the form of people talking about “hearing the door creek” or “fishing in the creak.”
Continue ReadingWe’re back! And with three different illustrations this week. Here’s another one of those words that a lot of people get wrong simply because spellcheck doesn’t catch it, and it’s another of those in which the mistake typically only goes one way. People often write loose when they mean lose, but I’ve never seen anyone write lose when they meant loose.
Continue Reading