Dictionary

A synonym is defined as a word or phrase that means the same or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language. Throughout the history of the English language, several synonyms appeared around the Middle Ages after the Norman invasion of England. Although England’s new leaders communicated through the Norman French language, the native inhabitants of England continued to speak Old English which resulted in Norman and Saxon-derived synonyms. With the later invention of the…

His first civilian job was working for a famous dictionary organization, The Oxford English Dictionary. His work was mainly the history and etymology of words that were of Germanic origin. Particularly those words that began with the letter W. Shortly after this, he became the youngest professor at the University of Leeds. His…

Can a Leopard Change Its Spots? This is not a joke, folks. I am really asking if a leopard can change its spots. Because, after listening to two episodes of the A Way With Words radio show, I would like to add some new vocabulary to my language repertoire. One episode in particular, “XYZ PDQ”, peaked my interest, probably because every word and phrase examined in that episode is a word or phrase that I would like to start using. Now, you are probably wondering what on earth this cool radio show…

they will always have someone who recognizes them as a mother, mom, momma, mum, etc. For example Ashley has a biological mother and she also has two other wonderful women she would also consider to be her mother. According to the Oxford English Dictionary Mother is an "Old English mōdor, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch moeder and German Mutter, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin mater and Greek mētē ." The word Mother has a form of initial respect. When Ashley calls her mom " ma"…

understandable that many people will see the new slang as destroying English, but it’s not it’s simply the new era of words that are popular at that time and place. The language has changed throughout many era’s and it can be shown on the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) which is a very cool resource and allows one to see how far the English language has come and where it continues to…

In the sentence If the test was held on Sunday, more people could take it, something sounds a little strange to our linguistic competency, which is our “hidden knowledge” of a language (Mihalic̆ek and Wilson). It may be difficult to point out the error, but instinctively we know an error lies somewhere within the sentence. According to Martha Kolln, “In if clauses that express a wish or a condition contrary to fact, we use were as the standard form of be, no matter what the subject” (Kolln and…

Shakespeare It is difficult for people today to picture the image of Shakespeare, or imagine how people revelled in front of Shakespeare’s stage. Though limited materials were left to satisfy people’s curiosities of his personal life, a great amount of his literature works were survived to be appreciated and evaluated. It is undoubted that Shakespeare was one of the most important people in England; because he elevated the social developments in England during the monarchs of Queen Elizabeth I…

Another bad experience that made me the writer I am now, was the English class I took my senior year. Everyone painted senior year to be the easiest year of all and that the teachers are not as demanding since it is your last year. The completely opposite happened to me, of course, I had put myself through another high level class, this time it was not honors but AP! What the hell was I thinking? I had chosen to take an AP English class with Santa Claus. Santa Claus was my English teacher’s…

In Marge Piercy’s narrative poem, “Barbie Doll”, the story of a young girl is told from the viewpoint of an outside speaker watching her grow up around the norms of society and ultimately ends her life because of it. Throughout each stanza, a new important piece of information is expressed to the readers to contribute to both the theme and tone of the poem. Piercy is able to cultivate the idea that inward beauty is not valued in today’s society, and that artificial perfection can only be…

Some of the earliest double entendres are found in the Exeter Book, or Codex exoniensis, at Exeter Cathedral in England. The book was copied around 975 AD. In addition to the various poems and stories found in the book, there are also numerous riddles. The Anglo-Saxons did not reveal the answers to the riddles, but they have been answered by scholars over the years. Some riddles were double-entendres, such as Riddle 25 ("I am a wondrous creature: to women a thing of joyful expectation, to…