Despite 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. Read More
Don’t Call Me Foreign
Tag Archives: language
Word Nerd: Take a Lode Off
Today’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. Read More
Word Nerd: Duel Identity
In 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. Read More
Word Nerd: A Tint of Rogue
Today 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.” Read More
Word Nerd: Thereby Hangs a Tail
Come 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. Read More
Language is Dead – An Emoji is the “Word” of the Year
Oxford Dictionaries have picked their Word of 2015. And it’s not Word. Read More
Word Nerd: Opening Gamut
Today’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. Read More
I Really Could Care Less, So I Wrote This Article
Language 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. Read More
The Language Geek Asks: Where Do You Live?
A conversation in which GeekDads discuss the absolute anarchy of city name pronunciation. Think you know how to correctly say “Louisville” or “Cholmondeley”? Read More
Word Nerd: Riding a Segue
For 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. Read More
Word Nerd: Playing Base
Today’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. Read More
Word Nerd: In a Stately Manner
Today we discuss minding our manners… and our manors. Read More
Word Nerd: It’s Inflammable!
Every 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? Read More
Word Nerd: A Miner Detail
Today’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. Read More
Word Nerd: On the Mantle
Today’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. Read More
Word Nerd: Send Up a Flair
Today’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. Read More
Word Nerd: Defuse Light
This 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. Read More
Word Nerd: Accept for Me
This 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. Read More
Word Nerd: Amusing Antidote
Here’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. Read More
Word Nerd: Vice Grip
Today’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. Read More
Word Nerd: Viola!
For 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. Read More
Word Nerd: Illicit Response
Today’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. Read More
Word Nerd: Guilty Conscious
This 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. Read More
Word Nerd: Heroine Overdose
This 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. Read More
Word Nerd: Clearing Hurtles
This 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. Read More
Word Nerd: Weary of Change
The 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. Read More
Word Nerd: Grace Us With Your Presents
Merry 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. Read More
Word Nerd: Up a Creak
Today’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.” Read More
Word Nerd: I’m a Looser.
We’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. Read More
Word Nerd: The Bear Facts
Here’s yet another in the endless parade of homophones (or heterographs, if you prefer) that spellcheck happily ignores. This time we’ll cover the distance between carrying a heavy load and taking off your clothes, and we’ll throw in a big scary animal while we’re at it. We’ll look at bear and bare. Read More
Word Nerd: Flushing Out
Today’s Word Nerd is one of those cases where two very similar phrases exist, and because of being misheard, the wrong one gets used. Yes, it’s a mondegreen. Like “for all intensive purposes” or “all the sudden” (and please don’t ever say either of those), “flush out” crops up where it makes no sense, due to people having misheard “flesh out.” Read More
Word Nerd Index
This week marks the one year anniversary of the Word Nerd feature, and it finally occurred to me (after a few people emailed suggesting words I’d already done) that there really ought to be an index, so that those who are interested can find previous installments. So here it is. New installments will be added to the list as they are posted. Read More
