Etymologie, Etimología, Étymologie, Etimologia, Etymology
US Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika, Estados Unidos de América, États-Unis d'Amérique, Stati Uniti d'America, United States of America
Sprache, Langue, Language
Amtssprache, Langue Officielle, Official Language:
Englisch (Spanisch), Anglais, English

A

aaal - American Association for Applied Linguistics

(E?)(L?) http://www.aaal.org/
Founded in 1977, the AAAL is a professional organization of scholars who are interested in and actively contribute to the multi-disciplinary field of applied linguistics.

about
Differences Between American and British English

(E?)(L?) http://esl.about.com/od/toeflieltscambridge/a/dif_ambrit.htm

By Kenneth Beare

While there are certainly many more varieties of English, American and British English are the two varieties that are taught in most ESL/EFL programs. Generally, it is agreed that no one version is "correct" however, there are certainly preferences in use. The most important rule of thumb is to try to be consistent in your usage. If you decide that you want to use American English spellings then be consistent in your spelling (i.e. The color of the orange is also its flavour - color is American spelling and flavour is British), this is of course not always easy - or possible. The following guide is meant to point out the principal differences between these two varieties of English.
...

about - urbanlegends

(E?)(L?) http://urbanlegends.about.com/
Urban Legends and Folklore at About.com - The title really says it all.

alphadictionary
Dr. Goodword
Basics of Language Study

(E1)(L1) http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/
Am 21.02.2010 waren folgende Artikel online:

Dr. Goodword Linguistics Minicourse

•Mamma Teached Me Talk (Language Acquisition) - You learn how to talk from listening to your parents and friends, right? Maybe not.
•Can Chimpanzees Talk? (Language and Mind) - If human beings are not the only species capable of speech, we aren't so special. Are we?
•Can colorless green ideas sleep furiously? (Syntax 1) - We seem to order the words in a sentence the way we think but evidence indicates otherwise.
•Why We Have to Pay Syntax (Syntax 2) - More evidence that sentences have their own rules of order distinct from those of semantics.
•But There are no Such Things as Words! (Morphology 1) - Evidence showing that we do not use words but parts of words when we speak!
•How to pronounce "GHOTI"... and why (Phonology, Spelling) - Most languages do not have writing systems; so what is the relation of spelling to speaking?
•How is a Hippo Like a Feather? (Historical Linguistics) - An examination of how languages come into being and change over time.
•Words: Where do They Come From? (Morphology 2) - A much more detailed discussion of where words come from.

Dictionaries, Glossaries, and Lists

•NEW STUFF! Folk Etymology - Did you know that crawfish started out as French écrevisse? And French got écrevisse from English crab? What happened? People helped it along by trying to change a foreign word into a perfectly English one. Read all about it here.
•NEW STUFF! Linguistics Glossary for the Good Words
•Rhyming Compounds in English - Have you every wondered about those sing-song words in English like, well, sing-song, not to mention fuddy-duddy and lickety-split? Read the surprising conclusions of Dr. Goodword, then peruse his growing collection of these funny little words.
•A Glossary of Eponyms - Here is the authoritative glossary of words from people's names compiled by Dr. Goodword himself.
?Newest additions to our eponym database.
•Zany Sentences Made from Movie Titles - Hilarious sentences made out of movie titles strung together. You can contribute. A game you can play, too.
•A List of Funny Company Names - Some are real, most are concocted but all are funny. See if you can come up with one funnier and we will publish it.
•A Glossary of Commonly Confused Words in English - Otherwise known as "false cognates", words English speakers commonly confuse with quizzes that will help you avoid confusing them.
•Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary - The best American tongue-in-cheek dictionary.
•A Glossary of Quaint Southernisms - Dr. Goodword plays with his own original version of English in an attempt to preserve it.
•Historical Dictionary of American Slang - A 2500 searchable dictionary of slang with dates that tell you when the slang first appeared.
?Newest additions to our American Slang database.
•IMglish Glossary (Chatroom and IM shorthand with Emoticons) - Shorten your messages using the new language of IMglish.
•Corrected Glossary of Manias - Crazy about something? There is a word for it no matter what it is.
•The Origins of the Names of the US States - The origins of the names of the US states by Dr. Beard based on the latest linguistic research (2007).
•Language Dictionaries - The very best online dictionaries in 300 languages.
•Specialty Dictionaries - Specialty glossaries in categories like sports, medicine, law, finance, biology, theater, music and 150 more.

Language Quizzes

•NEW! False Friend Riddles. Riddles made up of English sentences that contain a foreign word spelled identical to an English word. Define the foreign word to build your vocabulary and learn the major false friends (false cognates) of the language:
?French False Friend Riddles (Faux Amis)
?German False Friend Riddles (Falsche Freunde)
?Spanish False Friend Riddles (Falsos Amigos)
•The Rebel-Yankee Test - How much of a Rebel/Yankee are you? Take our quiz and we will tell you.
•The Advanced Rebel-Yankee Test - Did you pass the Rebel-Yankee test? Then you are ready for the advanced test.
•Miss Spelling's Multiple Choice Spelling Bee - This one covers all 100 of the most often misspelled words in a tricky multiple-choice quiz.
•NEW! Miss Spelling's Real Time Spelling Bee - This spelling bee is just like a real one: you hear the word, spell it, and are then told if you were right or wrong.
•The Commonly Confused Words Quizzes
?Commonly Confused Words on A
?Commonly Confused Words on B
?Commonly Confused Words on C
?Commonly Confused Words on DE
?Commonly Confused Words on F
?Commonly Confused Words on GHI
?Commonly Confused Words on JKL
?Commonly Confused Words on M
?Commonly Confused Words on NOPQ
?Commonly Confused Words on R
?Commonly Confused Words on S
?Commonly Confused Words on TUV
?Commonly Confused Words on WXYZ
•The Slang Generation Quiz - Find out in which generation the slang you use places you.
•Miss Spelling's Often Misspelled Words Quiz - An easy fill-in-the-blank spelling quiz that Miss Spelling created to warm you up for the Spelling Bee.

Dr. Goodword's Words on English

•NEW! Split Infinitives - Do you suffer from split infinitives? Then you have come to the right doctor. Doctor Goodword has just the right medicine to fix your problem.
•He, She, It, They - Can we use 'they' as substitute for singular 'he' and 'she'? Here is Dr. Goodword's final word on the subject.
•Do I Have to Repeat Myself? - The place of redundancy in language
•What is slang? - Dr. Goodword explains why we create and use slang.
•Bad Grammar or Language Change? - The use of 'less' and 'fewer' in English.
•Will I be Arrested if I End a Sentence with a Preposition? - Why shouldn't I end sentences with prepositions?
•Are You and I You and Me? - Does your skin crawl when you hear phrases like 'between you and I'?
•'Ain't' Isn't a Four-Letter Word - Teachers, tighten your seatbelts when you read this one!
•How Many Words are in English? - Is English the world word champ?
•Do you Suffer the Embarrassment of LVS? - The status of syncope in English speech.
•Yall (Youse, Yuns) Should Read This - Why does English not have a plural form of 'you'?
•A History of an Historical Quirk - Should you say 'a historical' or 'an historical?
•Warspeak: Linguistic Collateral Damage - Does war change the way we speak?
•A Language is a Dialect with an Army - So what is the difference between a language and a dialect?

Movie Backgrounds

•Mel Gibson's Apocalypto and the Mayan Culture
•Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's Languages
•Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ and the Fate of Aramaic

Words, Words, Words, Words, Words

•NEW! Commonly Confused Words in English (False Cognates)
•The 100 Funniest Words in English
•The 100 Most Beautiful Words in English
•The Most Often Mispronounced Words in English
•The Most Often Misspelled Words in English

Top 10 Words of the Year

•Top 10 Words of 2006: Amnesty No. 1
•Top 10 Words of 2005 (alphaDictionary)
•Top 10 Words of 2004 (alphaDictionary)
•Top 10 Words of 2003 (yourDictionary)
•Top 10 Words of 2002 (yourDictionary)
•Top 10 Words of 2001 (yourDictionary)
•Top 10 Words of 2000 (yourDictionary)

English Grammar & Style

•Chaos (English is Tough Stuff)
•The Third Word on -gry
•The Most Often Mispronounced Words in English
•The Most Often Misspelled Words in English
•Questions about English Grammar and Style (with Answers)

Common Questions about Language and Grammar

1.Fickle Ns and Ses
2.What's the third English word that ends in -gry?
3.What's the longest place name in the world?
4.What's the longest word in the English language?
5.What does "antidisestablishmentarianism" mean?
6.How do I say [a common phrase] in language X?
7.I need a boy's/girl's name in language X.
8.What does this name mean?
9.I have something in mind but can't think of the word for it.
10.Is it "judgment" or "judgement"?
11.Are "imply" and "infer" synonyms?
12.What is the difference between "its" and "it's?"
13.What is the difference betweem "may" and "can?"
14.What is the difference between "there" and "their?"
15.What is onomatopoeia?
16.What is the difference between an epithet and an epitaph?
17.What is an eponym?
18.What is an acronym?
20.What is a thesaurus?
21.What is PIE?
22.What does the suffix -stan mean in words like "Afghanistan?"
23.What does 'kumbaya' in the song, "Kumbaya, my Lord" mean?
24.What is the difference between sit/set and lie/lay?
25.Will I go to jail if I end a sentence with a preposition?
26.When should I say "X and I" and when "X and me?"
27.How can I help stomp out the use of "ain't?"
28.How many words are in English?

B

bartleby064
American Heritage Book of English Usage

(E?)(L?) http://www.bartleby.com/64/
American Heritage® Book of English Usage. 1996
With a detailed look at grammar, style, diction, word formation, gender, social groups and scientific forms, this valuable reference work is ideal for students, writers, academicians and anybody concerned about proper writing style.

CONTENTS

Bibliographic Record
Staff
Usage Panel
Introduction
Word Index
Subject Index

BOSTON: HOUGHTON MIFFLIN, 1996
NEW YORK: BARTLEBY.COM, 2000

1. Grammar
2. Style
3. Word Choice
4. Science Terms
5. Gender
6. Names and Labels
7. Pronunciation Challenges
8. Word Formation
a. Plurals
b. Forming Possessives
c. Affixes
d. Word Compounding
9. E-mail
10. A Grammar Toolkit

bartleby068
The Columbia Guide to Standard American English

(E?)(L1) http://www.bartleby.com/68/
(E?)(L?) http://web.archive.org/web/20080718023146/http://www.bartleby.com/68/
Kenneth G. Wilson
A vigorous assessment of how our language is best written and spoken and how we can use it most effectively, this guide is the ideal handbook of language etiquette: friendly, sensible, reliable, and fun to read. Its 6,500 entries contain thousands of examples, both descriptive and prescriptive, and feature 4,300 hyperlinked cross-references.
Search:

All
English Usage
Modern Usage
American English
Strunk's Style
Fowler's King's English

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Bibliography
Bibliographic Record

NEW YORK: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1993
NEW YORK: BARTLEBY.COM, 2001
Alphabetic Index of Entries - Browsable alphabetic index to over 6,500 entries

(E?)(L1) http://www.bartleby.com/68/a0.html

Entry Index

a to affection
affidavit to annex
anniversary to at long last
atop to benedict
benefactor to broach
broad to cession
chaff to COMPOUND SUBJECTS
comprehend to -d-
d’ to devil’s advocate
devise to DOUBLE HYPHEN
double in brass to end up
enervate to eyrie
-f to for free
forget to go somebody (them) one better
got to histrionics
hit to include
INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE to introduction
intrude to lease
leastways to materialize
materiel to mysterious
mystery to obtain
paperback to picture
picturesque to professor
proficient to real facts
realistic to rooftop
root to serendipity
serial to someway
somewhat to SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD
submarine to the fact is
their to under-
underground to VOCABULARY 3: SIZE
vocal chords to Xanadu

bartleby141
The Elements of Style

(E?)(L?) http://www.bartleby.com/141/
William Strunk, Jr.
Asserting that one must first know the rules to break them, this classic reference book is a must-have for any student and conscientious writer. Intended for use in which the practice of composition is combined with the study of literature, it gives in brief space the principal requirements of plain English style and concentrates attention on the rules of usage and principles of composition most commonly violated.
CONTENTS
Bibliographic Record Frontmatter
ITHACA, N.Y.: W.P. HUMPHREY, 1918
NEW YORK: BARTLEBY.COM, 1999

INTRODUCTORY
ELEMENTARY RULES OF USAGE

Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's
In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last
Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas
Place a comma before and or but introducing an independent clause
Do not join independent clauses by a comma
Do not break sentences in two
A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject
Divide words at line-ends, in accordance with their formation and pronunciation

ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION

Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic
As a rule, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence; end it in conformity with the beginning
Use the active voice
Put statements in positive form
Omit needless words
Avoid a succession of loose sentences
Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form
Keep related words together
In summaries, keep to one tense
Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end

A FEW MATTERS OF FORM
WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS COMMONLY MISUSED
WORDS COMMONLY MISSPELLED

bartleby185
The American Language
An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States

(E?)(L?) http://www.bartleby.com/185/
H.L. Mencken
This classic was written to clarify the discrepancies between British and American English and to define the distinguishing characteristics of American English. Mencken’s groundbreaking study was undoubtedly the most scientific linguistic work on the American language to date and continues to serve as a definitive resource in the field. CONTENTS
Bibliographic Record Subject Index Word and Phrase List
SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED
NEW YORK: ALFRED A. KNOPF, 1921
NEW YORK: BARTLEBY.COM, 2000

Preface to the First Edition Preface to the Second Edition

I. Introductory
1. The Diverging Streams of English
2. The Academic Attitude
3. The View of Writing Men
4. Foreign Observers
5. The General Character of American English
6. The Materials of the Inquiry

II. The Beginnings of American

1. The First Differntiation
2. Sources of Early Americanisms
3. New Words of English Material
4. Changed Meaning
5. Archaic English Words
6. Colonial Pronunciation

III. The Period of Growth

1. Character of the New Nation
2. The Language in the Making
3. The Expanding Vocabulary
4. Loan-Words and Non-English Influences
5. Pronunciation Before the Civil War

IV. American and English Today

1. The Two Vocabularies
2. Differences in Usage
3. Honorifics
4. Euphemisms
5. Expletives and Forbidden Words

V. International Exchanges

1. Americanisms in England
2. Briticisms in the United States

VI. Tendencies in American

1. General Characters
2. Lost Distinctions
3. Processes of Word-Formation
4. Foreign Influences Today

VII. The Standard American Pronunciation

1. General Characters
2. The Vowels

VIII. American Spelling

1. The Two Orthographies
2. The Influence of Webster
3. The Advance of American Spelling
4. British Spelling in the United States
5. Simplified Spelling
6. The Treatment of Loan-Words
7. Minor Differences

IX. The Common Speech

1. Grammarians and Their Ways
2. Spoken American As It Is
3. The Verb
4. The Pronoun
5. The Adverb
6. The Noun
7. The Adjective
8. The Double Negative
9. Other Syntactical Peculiarities
10. Vulgar Pronunciation

X. Proper Names in America

1. Surnames
2. Given Names
3. Geographical Names
4. Street Names

XI. American Slang

1. Its Origin and Nature
2. War Slang

Appendices
I. Specimens of the American Vulgate

1. The Declaration of Independence in American
2. Baseball-American
3. Ham-American
4. Vers Américain

II. Non-English Dialects in America

1. German
1. French
2. Spanish
3. Yiddish
4. Italian
5. Dano-Norwegian
6. Swedish
7. Dutch
8. Icelandic
9. Greek
10. The Slavic Languages

III. Proverb and Platitude
Bibliography

bartleby186
An Introduction to the Study of Speech

(E?)(L?) http://www.bartleby.com/186/
Edward Sapir
The noted linguist and anthropologist Edward Sapir wrote this work to show language in “relation to other fundamental interests—the problem of thought, the nature of the historical process, race, culture, art.” Language is not only a study of language and culture, but ultimately on the world of relations and influence.
CONTENTS
NEW YORK: HARCOURT, BRACE, 1921
NEW YORK: BARTLEBY.COM, 2000

Introductory: Language Defined
Language a cultural, not a biologically inherited, function. Futility of interjectional and sound-imitative theories of the origin of speech. Definition of language. The psycho-physical basis of speech. Concepts and language. Is thought possible without language? Abbreviations and transfers of the speech process. The universality of language.

The Elements of Speech
Sounds not properly elements of speech. Words and significant parts of words (radical elements, grammatical elements). Types of words. The word a formal, not a functional unit. The word has a real psychological existence. The sentence. The cognitive, volitional, and emotional aspects of speech. Feeling-tones of words.

The Sounds of Language
The vast number of possible sounds. The articulating organs and their share in the production of speech sounds: lungs, glottal cords, nose, mouth and its parts. Vowel articulations. How and where consonants are articulated. The phonetic habits of a language. The “values” of sounds. Phonetic patterns.

Form in Language: Grammatical Processes
Formal processes as distinct from grammatical functions. Intercrossing of the two points of view. Six main types of grammatical process. Word sequence as a method. Compounding of radical elements. Affixing: prefixes and suffixes; infixes. Internal vocalic change; consonantal change. Reduplication. Functional variations of stress; of pitch.

Form in Language: Grammatical Concepts
Analysis of a typical English sentence. Types of concepts illustrated by it. Inconsistent expression of analogous concepts. How the same sentence may be expressed in other languages with striking differences in the selection and grouping of concepts. Essential and non-essential concepts. The mixing of essential relational concepts with secondary ones of more concrete order. Form for form’s sake. Classification of linguistic concepts: basic or concrete, derivational, concrete relational, pure relational. Tendency for these types of concepts to flow into each other. Categories expressed in various grammatical systems. Order and stress as relating principles in the sentence. Concord. Parts of speech: no absolute classification possible; noun and verb.

Types of Linguistic Structure
The possibility of classifying languages. Difficulties. Classification into form-languages and formless languages not valid. Classification according to formal processes used not practicable. Classification according to degree of synthesis. “Inflective” and “agglutinative.” Fusion and symbolism as linguistic techniques. Agglutination. “Inflective” a confused term. Threefold classification suggested: what types of concepts are expressed? what is the prevailing technique? what is the degree of synthesis? Four fundamental conceptual types. Examples tabulated. Historical test of the validity of the suggested conceptual classification.

Language as a Historical Product: Drift
Variability of language. Individual and dialectic variations. Time variation or “drift.” How dialects arise. Linguistic stocks. Direction or “slope” of linguistic drift. Tendencies illustrated in an English sentence. Hesitations of usage as symptomatic of the direction of drift. Leveling tendencies in English. Weakening of case elements. Tendency to fixed position in the sentence. Drift toward the invariable word.

Language as a Historical Product: Phonetic Law
Parallels in drift in related languages. Phonetic law as illustrated in the history of certain English and German vowels and consonants. Regularity of phonetic law. Shifting of sounds without destruction of phonetic pattern. Difficulty of explaining the nature of phonetic drifts. Vowel mutation in English and German. Morphological influence on phonetic change. Analogical levelings to offset irregularities produced by phonetic laws. New morphological features due to phonetic change.

How Languages Influence Each Other
Linguistic influences due to cultural contact. Borrowing of words. Resistances to borrowing. Phonetic modification of borrowed words. Phonetic interinfluencings of neighboring languages. Morphological borrowings. Morphological resemblances as vestiges of genetic relationship.

Language, Race and Culture
Naïve tendency to consider linguistic, racial, and cultural groupings as congruent. Race and language need not correspond. Cultural and linguistic boundaries not identical. Coincidences between linguistic cleavages and those of language and culture due to historical, not intrinsic psychological, causes. Language does not in any deep sense “reflect” culture.

Language and Literature
Language as the material or medium of literature. Literature may move on the generalized linguistic plane or may be inseparable from specific linguistic conditions. Language as a collective art. Necessary esthetic advantages or limitations in any language. Style as conditioned by inherent features of the language. Prosody as conditioned by the phonetic dynamics of a language.

bartleby190
On the Art of Writing

(E?)(L?) http://www.bartleby.com/190/
Lectures Delivered in the University of Cambridge, 1913–1914
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
This renowned critic, scholar and educational reformer speaks on the artistic and vital nature of language as well as the skills needed both to convey and receive the written word.
CONTENTS
Bibliographic Record Preface
TO JOHN HAY LOBBAN
CAMBRIDGE: UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1916
NEW YORK: BARTLEBY.COM, 2000

Inaugural
The Practice of Writing
On the Difference between Verse and Prose
On the Capital Difficulty of Verse
On the Capital Difficulty of Prose
Some Principles Reaffirmed
On the Lineage of English Literature (I)
On the Lineage of English Literature (II)
English Literature in Our Universities (I)
English Literature in Our Universities (II)
On Style

bartleby191
On the Art of Reading

(E?)(L?) http://www.bartleby.com/191/
Lectures Delivered in the University of Cambridge, 1916–1917
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
As well as being a noted scholar and critic, Arthur Quiller-Couch was an active proponent for educational reform at Cambridge. This series of lectures is dedicated to his closest allies in the battle for a reformed English program at Cambridge and are rich with Quiller-Couch’s customary insight and intelligence.
CONTENTS
Bibliographic Record Preface
TO H. F. S. AND H. M. C.
CAMBRIDGE: UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1920
NEW YORK: BARTLEBY.COM, 2000

Introductory
Apprehension versus Comprehension
Children’s Reading (I)
Children’s Reading (II)
On Reading for Examinations
On a School of English
The Value of Greek and Latin in English Literature
On Reading the Bible (I)
On Reading the Bible (II)
On Reading the Bible (III)
Of Selection
On the Use of Masterpieces

Bering Strait Inupiatun
Language of US
Sprache von USA

(E?)(L?) http://www.ethnologue.com/
(E3)(L1) http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=esk

Bering Strait Yupik
Language of US
Sprache von USA

(E?)(L?) http://www.ethnologue.com/
(E3)(L1) http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ess

C

Corsican (W3)
Language of US
Sprache in US

(E?)(L?) http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=cos

...
Region Corsica, Paris, Marseilles. Also spoken in Bolivia, Canada, Cuba, Italy, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, USA, Venezuela.
...

D

E

effingpot
The Best of British

(E?)(L?) http://www.effingpot.com/

The American's guide to speaking British.

The seven sections on the left contain over 1000 words and expressions that have varied in their usage between the US and the UK. This site started as a simple list to amuse our friends when we moved to the USA for 2 years - believe it or not, to a house in Tossa Lane!!!

This list was compiled around 10 years ago and is all based on actual discussions with Americans from many States as we travelled around the USA. Of course, everyone has different experiences and the language seems to vary so much, and has moved on over the last decade, so don't be surprised if you find yourself questioning some of what you read.

Take it all with a pinch of salt and in the spirit of fun.

But most of all .... Enjoy!

Dr. Effingpot!

- Slang
- People
- Motoring
- Clothing
- Around the house
- Food & drink
- Odds & sods

F

fun-with-words (W3)

(E?)(L3) http://fun-with-words.com/
is the website dedicated to amusing quirks, peculiarities, and oddities of the English language. Our aim is to provide a site about wordplay which is both entertaining and educational. And most of all we want you to have fun with words.
In each section you will find everything you need to know, and more, including an explanation, plenty of examples, and the history of the subject.
Neben den vielen Links zu Amazon gibt es auch zu jedem sprachlichen Thema mehr oder weniger viele Beispiele. Ein Besuch lohnt sich aber auf jeden Fall.

G

H

hawaii - Language-Links

(E?)(L?) http://ling.lll.hawaii.edu/faculty/stampe
Links zu folgenden "Interests: phonology and prosody, verse and music, holistic typology and drift, computing, Austroasiatic and Indo-European languages, history of linguistics, et cetera."

I

infoplease - Writing & Language

(E?)(L?) http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001599.html
A guide to grammar and common grammatical errors, spelling tips, frequently misused and mispronounced words, a glossary of foreign terms, statistics about languages and foreign language study, and Greek and Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes.

A Concise Guide to Grammar and Style
Commonly Mispronounced Words
Frequently Misspelled Words
National Spelling Bee
Most Widely Spoken Languages in the World
Most Studied Foreign Languages in the U.S.
Ten Tips for Better Spelling
Easily Confused or Misused Words
Some Basic Phrases in Other Languages
Foreign Words and Phrases
Latin and Greek Word Elements
American Sign Language and Braille
Glossary of Poetry Terms
Common Abbreviations

J

K

L

Language (W3)

(E3)(L1) http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language

Language Code (W3)

(E3)(L1) http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/w/wiki.phtml?PHPSESSID=97ff51cc9e07858c2fc30dd48b4c71f2&search=language+code

linguatec - Voice Reader

linguistlist - Language Links

(E?)(L1) http://www.linguistlist.org/sp/LangAnalysis.html
Diese Seite listet viele (!) Links zu Linguistischen Seiten. Die Liste ist nach folgenden Zwischenüberschriften gegliedert:

Constructed Languages
Endangered Languages
Language Families
Language Meta Sites
Natural Languages
Writing Systems

Es sind wirklich viele Sprachen angesprochen.

loc - Library of Congress - Four Centuries of British-American Relations
Common Language, Separate Voices

(E?)(L?) http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/british/brit-6.html

When the seventeenth-century settlers brought the English language to America, they immediately and necessarily began to adapt it to their new environment. These changes were noted early and criticized by purists on both sides of the Atlantic. However, after the Revolution, Americans began to take pride in their own form of English. Noah Webster (1758-1843) was the major early proponent of American meanings and spellings over British ones and published the earliest American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1806). During the years since Webster, language differences have continued to develop, demonstrating the truth of George Bernard Shaw's oft-repeated observation that the two nations are "divided by a common language."
...

M

Malecite-Passamaquoddy - Language of US (W3)

(E3)(L1) http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=pqm
(E?)(L?) http://www.language-museum.com/
(E?)(L1) http://www.native-languages.org/index.htm#tree

Maliseet-Passamaquoddy - Language of US (W3)

(E3)(L1) http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=pqm

mla
Modern Language Association

(E?)(L?) http://www.mla.org/
Founded in 1883 by teachers and scholars, the Modern Language Association promotes the study and teaching of language and literature.

mla
Language Map - US

(E?)(L?) http://www.mla.org/census_main
(E?)(L?) http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/001069.html

A Map of Languages in the United States
The MLA Language Map is intended for use by students, teachers, and anyone interested in learning about the linguistic and cultural composition of the United States. The MLA Language Map uses data from the 2000 United States census to display the locations and numbers of speakers of thirty languages and seven groups of less commonly spoken languages in the United States. The census data were based on responses to the question, "Does this person speak a language other than English at home?" The Language Map illustrates the concentration of language speakers in zip codes and counties. The Data Center provides actual numbers and percentages of speakers.

N

nytimes

(E?)(L?) http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/18/arts/18GEST.html?pagewanted=all&position=top
Some Language Experts Think Humans Spoke First With Gestures - By EMILY EAKIN (kostenlose Registrierung)

O

P

Passamaquoddy - Language of US (W3)

(E3)(L1) http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=pqm

pbs - Public Broadcasting Service -

(E?)(L2) http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan-june03/email_1-6.html
Jesse Sheidlower was on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer last night (6 January, 2003). They did a feature on how email and electronic communications is changing the language. Jesse was one of two linguists interviewed. The other was Patricia O'Conner, who has written an email style guide.
It was an excellent piece, one of the best examples of media coverage of a linguistic issue that I've seen. A RealAudio version of the story is available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html.
(A: dawi, ADSL)

Q

R

S

shetter
Language Miniatures
by William Z. Shetter

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/

Mini-essays by William Z. Shetter about human language in its endless kaleidoscope of aspects, such as the social, the mental, the historical, the structural.

A new essay will appear on this page around the first of every month. Occasionally there will be an 'extra' sometime in the month.

These Miniatures are all written and illustrated especially for presentation on this website. They are the work of William Z. Shetter, a retired university professor of foreign language and linguistics.

LINKS to The eleven categories (listed by title and subtitle only)

Our English language | Our vocabulary | English in society: using the language | Some varieties of English | Things to know about many languages | Language and culture | Languages in history | How language happens | Grammar: how language works | Other things about language | April Fool!

Die Zeitangaben bei den einzelnen "Sprach-Miniaturen" lassen erkennen, dass seit Oktober 1998 monatlich (meist) zwei neue 2-seitige Artikel eingestellt wurden. (24.02.2006)

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/allmins.html
LINKS TO ALL LANGUAGE MINIATURES (2006-03-06)

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/phoneteng.htm

200. "Though the Tough Cough ..." Phonetic spelling to help but not replace (Sep 08) Anyone who has learned to read and write English knows that the spelling system is not truly phonetic. Devising a phonetic transcription to help those who learn to read and write English is simpler than you might imagine.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/verbpinker.htm

199. Cram, Drizzle, Scatter, Twist, ... It's a very physical world we talk about (Aug 08) Concepts such as substance, space, time and force are composed in our minds in a sort of conceptual infrastructure. We get a glimpse of this when we observe the large number of verbs that describe the handling of physical objects.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/dual.htm

198. It Takes 2 to Tango Singular, dual and plural number (Jul 08) In most languages, forms of nouns, pronouns or verbs make a clear distinction between singular and plural. Some also have special forms for when just two of something are being referred to. This is what we call the dual number.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/budge.htm

197. This is Worth a Red Cent Those curious 'negative-only' expressions (Jun 08) That comically odd title is like a number of expressions in English that only sound right if used with a negative 'not'. Here we're taking a look at these, and also words with the negating prefix 'un-' like unwieldy that, similarly, lack a counterpart without it.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/inversion.htm

196. A Tricky Shell Game in English Moving that verbal pea to the right spot (Jun 08) Imagine the simple English sentence My brother brings something good. We can ask a question about this in either of two ways: Who brings something good? or What does my brother bring? The verb bring has moved to a different place in the second, and that's the trick.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/wordchamp.htm

195. A Fingertip Dictionary What's that foreign word mean? Just click on it (May 08) Today as much as a fifth of all the pages on the web are in a language other than English. There is an increasing need to be able to read this ever-expanding material, and a website called WordChamp offers some quick aids to the reader.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/evidentialsGD.htm

194. "He knows who took it" He said that, but are you guaranteeing its truth? (May 08) The grammatical strategy of many languages obliges the speaker to specify the reliability of what is said, such as whether facts are based on personal observation or hearsay. These evidential forms may seem exotic but we also find them in the closely related German and Dutch.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/metathesis.htm

193. Asking and Axing Speech sounds doing a dance around each other (Apr 08) Speech sounds in sequence influence each other in a variety of ways, one of which is metathesis, the seemingly random switching of the order of - usually two - consonants or vowels. There are some languages in which this process is regularized.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/globish.htm

192. An International 'English-Lite' How Globish attempts to fill this need (Mar 08) Around the world millions of people with little or no formal education in English need to rely on it the best they can for rudimentary communication. Here we look at a simplified and standardized way their needs can be met.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/accomplishment.htm

191. Accomplishing and Achieving Maybe these aren't as synonymous as we thought (Feb 08) For most of us speakers of English, 'to accomplish' and 'to achieve' have essentially the same meaning. By means of a number of examples, we show here that in ordinary usage we are in fact making a rather clear distinction between them.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/origins.htm

190. The Origin Question Again Not only how, but why we acquired language (Jan 08) We consider again the age-old question of the origins of language. We take up the crucial question of what adaptive advantages the possession of language could have conferred on the human species.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/middle.htm

189. This Essay Reads in Three Minutes But that's an odd thing to say, isn't it? (Dec 07) When we say a sentence like This shirt washes in cold water, where the grammatical subject (this shirt) is receiving rather than performing the action, we are using what is known as the middle voice. It is not the same as active or passive.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/hangul.htm

188. A two-dimensional alphabet The elegant Korean writing system (Nov 07) In writing Korean, each 'character' in the Hangul script is a syllable block composed of two or more consonant and vowel letters. They obey prescribed arrangements, and we look at what some of the rules are.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/well.htm

187. "Well" She Said And was communicating a lot with that word (Oct 07) We all hear and use that little introductory word well more frequently than we're aware. We ask just what it means, and suggest that it serves an important social function in a conversation.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/wikilangs.htm

186. Multilingualism in Wikipedia A genuinely international enterprise (Sep 07) By now nearly everyone who uses the Internet hashad occasion to consult the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, currently consisting of over eight million articles. Here we take a look at the distribution of the over 250 languages in which Wikipedia artricles are written.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/piraha.htm

185. The Concrete Present Here's a language that never leaves it (Aug 07) The Pirahã language spoken in the Amazon has recently been the subject of some notoriety. It shows some simplicities of structure that appear to set it apart from the universal design features of human language. There are possible cultural reasons for this.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/ditransitive.htm

184. That's the Object Look what happens when you have two of them (Jul 07) We can say either 'Alice gave money to the organization' or 'Alice gave the organization money'. If this is hardly different from 'Alice donated money to the organization', then why does 'Alice donated the organization money' sound so wrong?

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/decay.htm

183. Going to the Dogs Language change perceived as decay (Jul 07) We regularly welcome new developments in science and medicine as improvements over the past, but not innovations in our language. Why IS change in a language almost invariably condemned as some kind of 'degeneration'?

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/binomials.htm

182. No Mirrors and Smoke Here Does that sound all right? (Jun 07) We all know large numbers of set expressions that consist of two words joined by and (apples and oranges, day and night, black and blue, by and large). Some of them sound just as good with the order reversed, but many do not. Why could this be?

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/typolcycle.htm

181. The Linguistic Wheel Turns Language change viewed as a cycle (May 07) The grammatical strategies of languages differ widely:while some depend on arrangements of isolated words, others rely on inflections and derivations of varying complexity.It is possible that these rough categories evolve into each other.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/way.htm
180. Ponder your Way into this One What is that word way communicating here? (Apr 07) Suppose you say these rather ordinary sentences: He elbowed his way through the crowd She’s groping her way along the narrow city streets It was only with difficulty that I eased my way into that tight chair. and now think about that common word way. When you use it in this kind of sentence, you seem to be saying that there is movement along a path, and that there is some kind of barrier (crowd, maze of narrow streets, tight chair) to be overcome. You're using the verb to describe the means by which it is overcome (to elbow, to grope, to ease). This ‘barrier’ may be physical, but it can also be a more abstract or a social one. Suppose you say He bought his way into the exclusive country club She married her way into an upper-class family Here you seem to be saying that both of them overcame social barriers in a specific manner. A few further examples will help you see how many kinds of barrier there can be - ... to continue

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/arabnames.htm
179. Here's Mohammed And now for the rest of his name (Mar 07) In our English-speaking culture, we’re used to a person’s name being ‘First-Middle-Last’, something like Frank Lloyd Wright or - using the maiden name in the middle - Sandra Day O’Connor. So when we see a name from another culture, we naturally enough interpret it in the same familiar terms. When the president of Egypt has the name Gamal Abdul Nasser, his first name is Gamal and his last name looks like Nasser, so in our media he’s known as ‘Mr. Nasser’ from then on. The only trouble with that is that Arab names are put together on a rather different basis, and that makes misunderstandings and misinterpretations inevitable. In a system that has a great deal of variety, we can distinguish a few basic customs... to continue

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/grammaticalization.htm
178. The Language Machine It wears out words and 'recycles' them (Feb 07) All languages are undergoing change all the time. This often results in the shortening of a word or a fading of its meaning. Yet languages never 'decay away' but are constantly renewing themselves by means of a process known as grammaticalization.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/remacadamized.htm
177. This Road is Remacadamized The impartial give-and-take of languages (Jan 07) When societies are in intensive cultural contact with each other, many aspects of the languages get borrowed back and forth. In English we find many examples of words made up of contributions from two or more other languages.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/aymara.htm
176. Facing the Past Time and space is an inescapable topic (Jan 07) Recently there were claims in the media that the Aymara people in the Andes appear to have a 'reversed' view of the flow of time, with past extended in front and future behind. We take a critical look at these claims.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/invented.htm
175. Language and Thought Inventing the one to shape the other (Dec 06) As a way of expolring the complex relations between language, thought and behavior, for many centuries imaginary languages have been constructed. Some of the most imaginative have appeared as science fiction.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/sentencecpd.htm
174. A Think About it Essay Another way we put words together (Dec 06) In English we can readily form an infinite number of compounds using various parts of speech. In the colloquial language we broaden this considerably by forming compounds in which the first member is a whole phrase.

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/linguistlist.htm
173. Language Online Finding your needle in a linguistic haystack (Nov 06) Welcome (back?) to Language Miniatures. You’re reading on this website, so you probably have some interest in language matters. The question is, if you’re visiting for the first time, how you came across it. Were you just surfing? Did you Google some words like ‘essays on language’ (or maybe ‘linguistics for dummies’)? Did you find a link somewhere? How come you’re reading this one rather than some other? The number of sites on the web the theme of which is language and linguistic topics is at least well up there in five or six figures. So finding the one that offers solid information at an appropriate level for you is anything but an easy task. Given the very modest length of our Miniatures, it would be foolhardy indeed to even begin to survey something as vast and unwieldy as ‘language/linguistics on the web’. But we’re in luck: all we have to do is explore for a few minutes one single site that can serve as your source for all you will probably ever want to know about language and the field of linguistics. Click now on the site that deservedly describes itself as The world’s largest online linguistic resource: The LINGUIST List [//linguistlist.org] (unless of course you accessed the Miniatures via that route). Where do we begin? to continue

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/amerind.htm
172. The World through Other Eyes Making distinctions we might not think of (Oct 06) In English, if you want to speak correctly about several objects, you have no option but to use the plural form (one apple, some apples). But in Chinese and many other languages, there is no grammatical plural, the meaning being left to context - that word ‘some’ indicates plural well enough. Second example: in English you have no choice but to specify the gender of someone referred to (you must choose either he or she), whereas Chinese speakers with their pronoun ta for both don’t make any such distinction. The point here: In both cases, one language’s grammar is obliging speakers to recognize certain meaning distinctions by having to choose between grammatical forms (noun plurals, pronoun gender) while another imposes no such obligation. It was with grammatical obligations like this in mind that a linguist wrote recently A subtle but pervasive way in which languages differ is in the distinctions they allow speakers to express easily and those they require speakers to observe in order to speak grammatically. To find radical differences in distinctions that languages oblige their speakers to make, we can hardly find a better source than the many languages spoken for thousands of years on our own North American continent"... to continue

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/dolphins.htm
171. Animals Can’t Use Words But are some able to name themselves? (Sep 06) In nature many animal species live in social bands ... For these groups to keep the social cohesion that is vital to them, they have to be able to send and understand some kind of signals to each other. In thick forest, rugged country or under sometimes murky water, these communications most often take the form of audible signals to each other. Think of how social animals like elephants, hyenas, apes, penguins, wild geese, sea lions, whales and many others communicate with each other to keep track of where members of the band are. Their vocalizations serve to keep the group together but without singling out individuals. In many species, members do seem to recognize voices but they don’t seem to have the ability to mimic this voice in any way that would address or refer to a member of the same species as an individual. We social humans can of course do all this too ... And like many animals, we can easily identify an individual by the distinctive sound of a voice. But we do something else that animals don’t seem to: an individual has an identifiable name that can be used by anyone to address or refer to that person. So our socially-cohesive signals seem to contain an individualizing element, a label that is available to any member of the species. The name keeps its identification with a certain individual even when all voice qualities are removed - such as when the name is produced synthetically. Think about it for a minute: this is a really significant difference. We are seeing a clear distinction between the way humans use names and the absence of any true naming instinct among other animals. Now we can begin to see the significance of recent investigations into dolphin communication in the wild. to continue

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/stranding.htm
170. A Preposition Is a comfortable word to end a sentence with (Aug 06) Here are a few little sentences such as you can hear around you every day. We talk about him We ride in the car You put it on the table I open it with a knife Notice that each one of these has a preposition in it. And following right after each preposition is the person or thing affected by it, its object. As all who speak English know, in some circumstances, such as when we want to say something extra about the preposition’s object, we can move it to a position earlier in the sentence. But notice again: the preposition doesn’t come along with it but stays where it was, following the verb: He is the one we are talking about This is a comfortable car to ride in Here is the table you can put it on Hand me a knife to open it with You’ll agree, won’t you, that the sentences in the second are just as correct and normal as the first? That preposition at the end of the sentence no longer has its object standing immediately to the right of it, but the preposition’s object is clearly there, just switched to a position earlier in the sentence. This common operation is called preposition stranding, which we can define as ‘the syntactic construction in which a preposition appears without an object.’ Note that word ‘appears’ or ‘appears to be’, because the object has not disappeared. to continue

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/suffixy.htm
169. This is a Suffixy Essay A popular way of deriving an adjective (July 06) Miniature No. 167 seemed to be exhibiting the rather ‘prefixy’ grammar of Indonesian, No. 86 suggested that the Bantu languages Zulu and Xhosa have a tendency to be ‘clicky’, No. 20 that Navajo is notably ‘verby’, and that No. 9 shows Georgian with its gnd-, brjg-, mtsvrtn- etc. to be famously ‘clustery’. All four of those words in quotes may well be new to you, and yet you probably had no trouble understanding what they’re saying. We can add the suffix -y to just about any other word and communicate the meaning “having a quantity of,” “some of the quality of” or “reminds one of.” But -y hasn’t always been so widely applicable (productive is the term), and that’s an interesting story... to continue

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/worldenglish.htm
168. The World Speaks English So are other languages destined to disappear? (June 06) If English is your mother tongue, you might be curious as to how many of us there are. English is the native language of something like 380 million people, and that is between six and six and a half percent of the world population. If it isn’t your first language, the fact that you’re reading this means that you have learned English - you probably use it somewhere between ‘hesitantly’ and ‘fluently’, possibly even with little trace of an accent. And you have a lot more company than native speakers, by several orders of magnitude: the number of people around the world who speak at least serviceable English is now estimated at closing in on two billion, which is around a third of the total world population. This ability to communicate in one single language around the globe is unique in world history. You’ll hardly need a reminder of how English is used in international communication: computers and e-mail, internal correspondence in corporations, international conferences, airline traffic control and flight attendants - and this is only the beginning. The question we’re leading up to here is: What kind of English? to continue

(E3)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/indonesian.htm
167. The Orangutan Makes Batik Looking deeper than words into another language (May 06) Indonesian verb forms make a sharp distinction between whether a person or thing is affected by the action (transitive) or not (intransitive). Pairs of verbs sometimes reveal distinctions we might not have thought of.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/animate.htm
165. A Rock, a Fish, and Lee Grammar and degrees of consciousness (Mar 06) Often in English we unconsciously observe grammatical distinctions depending on whether what we are talking about is animate or inanimate. This distinction is found in the grammars of languages throughout the world.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/doublemodal.htm
164. You Might Could Read This Some expressiveness in regional speech (Feb 06) In standard English we normally use one modal auxiliary at a time, but in many forms of regional speech, combinations of them are used, resulting in a large variety of subtle shades of meaning.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/camelcase.htm
163. CamelCase Or, a case of recent spelling inventiveness (Feb 06) Upper case or CAPITAL letters have long had many uses, such as beginning a proper name or a sentence. A spelling convention that has been developing in recent time is the use of a capital in the middle of a word.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/euphemisms.htm
162. Language has its Powers There are some words we often avoid saying (Jan 06) A common feature of the way all of us speak is the use of euphemisms, words that deliberately avoid some less pleasant or 'stronger' word. We ask what impels us to use euphemisms, and look at examples from the area of religion.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/subjunc.htm
161. We Ask that YOU BE Alert Imagining what we think should happen (Dec 05) Most verbs have the function of describing something ('I was there'). But on the occasions when we want to express a wish or imagined happening ('If I were there'), we use the subjunctive.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/tlingit.htm
160. Talking about Beliefs The Alaskan Tlingit language today (Nov 05) Since November is Native American Heritage Month, we might pause a moment to consider a language spoken in the Alaska 'panhandle' by a shrinking number of people. What is the future of Tlingit language and their traditional culture?

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/phoneconv.htm
159. Ear-only Conversations The telephone and social interaction (Nov 05) A telephone conversation between two people is divorced from most of the normal complexities of social interaction. So it is about as basic as spoken communication can get. In the opening seconds the partners quickly establish their interaction.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/loanpron.htm
158. A hotto doggu or a hanbaaga? English words clothed in foreign sounds (Oct 05) When English words are borrowed into another language, normally we expect pronunciation to be modified. Just in what ways depends on pronunciation habits in the borrowing language. Japanese provides some striking examples.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/timespace.htm
157. Some Weighty Arguments But how can something abstract be heavy? (Sep 05) We find it hard to talk about time without reaching for space metaphors. The way we think of time as stretched out in a long line can conceal some tricks in interpretation.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/irishgaelic.htm
156. From Gaeilge to English The Irish language in Ireland (Aug 05) Irish Gaelic has recently been recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. The language is the vehicle of an ancient culture rish in story and song. How is Irish Gaelic faring under the current pressure from English?

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/folketym.htm
155. A Chaise Longue is for lounging, right? (July 05) Some words, often from another language, seem to have no connection to any familiar words. Occasionally we - largely unconsciously - reshape their pronunciation or spelling to make them seem to relate to words we already know.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/nountense.htm
154. My Wife-to-be, Ex-husband But calling a person past or future?? (July 05) In most languages, an expression of time (past, present or future) is the function of the verb using the grammatical mechanism of tense. But in some languages the noun or pronoun functions as the bearer of tense indication.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/ideogram.htm
153. Rx: Words worth a lb of Au or, Prescription: words worth a pound of gold (June 05) Most letters suggest the pronunciation of a word, but occasionally letters stand for a word without indicating its pronunciation. Examples are the italicized words in the title. Like the numerals, they ease international communication.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/interrogsign.htm
152. Going to Read this? Sign languages and that rise in the voice (June 05) Signed languages are not mutually intelligible across languages. Yet they show a few surprising similarities around the world. The most striking example is the ways questions are asked.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/deferred.htm
151. "I'm parked out back" Things are not always what they seem (May 05) We have a somewhat amusing way of occasionally referring to someone or something by means of an expression that relates to rather than directly denoting. Like saying "I'm parked" when we're really referring to "my car".

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/isolates.htm
150. Orphans with no Families Languages missing genetic relationships (Apr 05) Nearly all the 6000 languages around the world can be grouped into language families (such as our own Indo-European family), but there are a few dozen languages that cannot be related to any family.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/numeral.htm
149. A Fivesome of Numerals Evidence for counting in the distant past (Apr 05) The names of the numbers we use every day give a few suggestive insights into some stages in which our early ancestors may have started counting objects.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/we.htm
148. Do WE Agree with This? We find a world of possibilities in that 'we' (Mar 05) The pronoun 'we' is another of those little words like 'the', 'and', 'here', 'now' where the meaning we understand is almost entirely dependent on the context.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/enrollments.htm
147. 200 Now Learning Samoan Americans and foreign languages (Mar 05) A national survey of U.S. enrollments in foreign languages in 2002 showed a dramatic increase when compared to the results of a 1998 survey. What this might mean in the 2005 'Year of Language Study'.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/uniquedes.htm
146. CA's LAX Gets an A The alphabet and unique designation (Feb 05) Today we more and more have need to assign unique labels, often using 2 or 3 letters of the alphabet. But they are usually not random, taking account of our human need to recognize and remember what is being labeled.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/become.htm
145. Getting interested How we talk about becoming some way (Feb 05) In English we commonly say things like become aware or get well when we want to indicate the beginning of some condition we're describing. The interesting side of this is that not any verb can be used with any adjective.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/spanishusa.htm
144. An Hacienda in Colorado Spanish is still alive (and well?) in the U.S. (Jan 05) We take a look at Spanish in the U.S., not from a geographical or numerical point of view but asking the question: how is the language faring embedded in an English-language environment?

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/reduplication.htm
143. No Hocus-Pocus Here! Repeating a word or syllable (Dec 04) That process of repeating (for example so-so or heebie-jeebies) is called reduplication, and it is very common in languages throughout the world to convey a variety of meanings.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/infinite.htm
142. Breaking New Ground A sentence nobody has ever said before! (Nov 04) The subconscious rules and patterns we use in forming sentences allow us to routinely create an infinite number of sentences. Any sentence we hear or see may in fact have never been used before.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/errors.htm
141. Slips of the Tongue What errors in speech reveal (Nov 04) Errors we all make in speech are usually promptly corrected or go entirely unnoticed. But a look at some typical ones can tell us a great deal about how we go about processing language in our minds.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/childsign.htm
140. Reinventing Language? Deaf children gesturing do it routinely (Oct 04) Those who are born without hearing into families in which sign language is not used will invent their own gesturing systems. Remarkably, these are not just gestures to make wishes known but systems with all the main characteristics of true language.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/definitart.htm
139. The Case for THE The definite article around the world (Sept 04) We compare our English the with the ways the definite article behaves in several other languages, and find similarities but also some striking differences. We also ask the question whether all languages have something like a definite article, and give some examples.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/datverb.htm
138. Explaining an Idea TO you Acts like Telling an idea TO you. Or does it? (Aug 04) Verbs like give, show, tell, hand, send imply giving (etc.) something TO somebody. We say I tell the story to you and also I tell you the story. But other verbs that look similar can't do this: we can say I explain the story to you, so why not I explain you the story?

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/mlamap.htm
137. Armenian in Montana The colorful new interactive language map (July 04) The Modern Language Association now has on their website a map displaying - for the country as a whole down to a particular county - where 37 of the languages most commonly used in the U.S. are spoken. The number of speakers of each of these can be seen in colors on the map or in the census figures.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/thspell.htm
136. THink THese THings THrough The TH-spelling, sound and symbol (July 04) This spelling is ambiguous in more than one way: two letters spell a single sound, but at the same time there are two distinctly different th-sounds, the voiceless one in think and bath, and the voiced one in these and bathe.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/dogmap.htm
135. How Humans Learn Words Can apes, dolphins, even dogs do it too? (June 04) A recent article in Science magazine described a dog learning words in a way that resembled the 'fast-mapping' that a human child does, and this was widely featured in the press. A critical look at what is behind it.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/disambig.htm
134. The Orange Juice Seat Or, the role of context in making sense (June 04) A phrase like the title or a whole sentence may be grammatically correct and yet sound like nonsense. But as users of the language, we're very skilled at finding ways of endowing it with sense.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/vowelharm.htm
133. A Little Close Harmony Sounds of a language 'echoing' each other (May 04) 'Echoing' of neighboring consonants or vowels is something that occurs in all languages. In Turkish we find a particularly striking system in which vowels influence each other's color all through the word.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/preserve.htm
132. Talking and the Mists of Time Future generations hearing how we sound (Apr 04) Digital technology offers increasingly diverse technologies for preserving records of our languages and what they sound like. But they are only as good as their continued accessibility. Some things that are being done about this

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/into.htm
131. Tempt you Into Pausing? Persuasion leading 'into' its results (Mar 04) The word into has meanings beyond the concrete 'to the inside of something'. It sometimes links two verbs together in interesting and very specific ways

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/finnswede.htm
130. My Language is my Identity But just what is "my language"? (15 Feb 04) A look at what it might feel like when you're a citizen of Finland but your native language is Swedish

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/IEorigin.htm
129. Our Indo-European Ancestors The peoples who migrated from somewhere else (1 Feb 04) A brief analysis of the article in Nature proposing that our IE-speaking ancestors migrated westward from Anatolia

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/langmuseum.htm
128. Hands-on Language A museum for the very young (15 Jan 04) Today we have many kinds of 'hands-on' museums for children. What would a museum like this devoted to language look like?

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/mutual.htm
127. Languages Without Subtitles Understanding speakers 'not from here' (1 Jan 04) The 'mutual intelligibility' of any two languages is a measure of how well speakers of each can understand each other without special study. But it is an inexact measure.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/complem.htm
126. STOP TO SMELL the Roses But don't STOP SMELLING the roses (15 Dec 03) When a verb is introduced by another verb, as in They ordered me to go and They appreciated working with me, how do we know whether to use to - or -ing?

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/webtrans.htm
125. A Tough Nut to Crack Machine translation on the Web (1 Dec 03) Instant mechanical translation is easily available to everyone via the Web, and it does an intelligible but still rather crude job

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/yall.htm
124. Are Y'all Enjoying this One? A 'southernism' we all know (15 Nov 03) The most famous 'southernism' by far is y'all for you (plural), and today its use is speading far beyond the South.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/definition.htm
123. Language is Human Behavior Using sounds and grammar to communicate (1 Nov 03) How a precise and useful dictionary definition is put together

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/possessive.htm
122. This Miniature's Interest The ways we use the possessive (15 Oct 03) The 'possessive' 's in English has quite a few meanings beyond simple possession

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/aspect.htm
121. Are you Reading This? Imperfective and Perfective Aspect (1 Oct 03) Many languages emphasize not only when an action takes place (tense) but how it is done (aspect). A look at the interaction of the two aspects of Russian

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/pragmatics.htm
120. The Words and the Message Do you always mean just what you say? (15 Sep 03) A brief exploration of what we mean by pragmatics in the study of language: the relation between what we mean and what we actually say

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/romance.htm
119. Latin and its Children Language change creating many from one (1 Sep 03) The Romance languages of today, all descended from Latin, offer a unique opportunity to observe how languages diverge over time

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/particle.htm
118. THROWING OUT a New Idea But without throwing the new idea out (15 Aug 03) In English many verbs have another little word associated with them, such as turn off or give up. Some meaning differences depending on where that little adverb belongs

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/iceman.htm
117. Mummified Language Concreteness in evaporated speech (1 Aug 03) A great deal has been learned about the life of that mummified body found frozen in the Alps a few years ago. But is there any way to guess what language he spoke?

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/ambig.htm
116. A Good Essay if not the Best Maybe the best? Clearly not the best? (15 Jul 03) All languages have a measure of ambiguity built into them, and it may be of a number of different types

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/flusa.htm
115. Our Language Symphony Many Americans speak not only English (1 Jul 03) A quick survey of the many languages spoken by U.S. citizens. Nearly all these speakers are bilingual and this is a national resource that should be treasured

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/turkestan.htm
114. Hidden Treasures Languages in (East) Central Asia (15 Jun 03) Several major language families exist side by side in this vast region

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/lexicon.htm
113. Language, Grammar, Verb, Noun Word meanings do a lot of networking (1 Jun 03) The vocabulary of any language forms complex, fine-grained networks relating the words of related meanings in a variety of ways. One of them is known as the lexical field.

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/finnish.htm
112. IN the Woods, ON the Lakes Expressing motion in location (15 May 03) The case system of the Finnish language makes many elaborate distinctions in talking about movement as it relates to space

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/handmt.htm
111. Point-and-Click English Translation in the palm of your hand (1 May 03) The recently developed (but still expensive) hand-held pocket PC contains a camera coupled to a translation device that offers instantaneous translation of signs

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/false.htm
110. False Friends Looking the same isn't always meaning the same (15 Apr 03) Words in any two languages that look alike but mean different things are called false friends and they easily betray the learner

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/future.htm
109. A Visionary Language Where the sole reality lies in the future (1 Apr 03) This tongue-in-cheek Miniature imagines a language that has only future tense and what some results of that might be

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/garden.htm
108. As You Read this Essay will slip in some new thoughts (15 Mar 03) Sentences that momentarily mislead the reader by implying a certain construction and then ending up differently (like the title and subtitle) are called garden path sentences

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/scripts.htm
107. Speech Made Visible The writing palette of the world's languages (1 Mar 03) The many scripts the languages of the world are written in derive from a very small number of writing systems

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/anysome.htm
106. It Takes Two to Tango The delicate balance between some and any (15 Feb 03) We use these two words all the time, for instance in the same sentence whether positive or negative, but our internalized knowledge that allows such effortless use is complex

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/illiterate.htm
105. Speech and Written Image Visualizing the first but without the second (1 Feb 03) There is evidence that illiterate persons perceive the relationship between ideas in a strikingly different way. Some questions about how writing guides our thinking

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/hittite.htm
104. A Far-Removed Relative The Indo-European family tree revisited (15 Jan 03) Hittite was an IE language spoken long ago in what is now central Turkey. Thousands of cuneiform tablets have been deciphered

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/accent.htm
103. "Pippil widda Eksent" People with an Accent, but how come? (1 Jan 03) What does a 'foreign accent' actually consist of? Some analysis of its various components

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/literally.htm
102. "That Literally Killed me" The elusiveness of word meanings (15 Dec 02) In many people's usage, the word literally is shifting its meaning from 'not figuratively' to 'I really mean it'. Some reflections on how words mean

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/2and1.htm
101. TWO for the Price of ONE Do some languages make superfluous distinctions? (1 Dec 02) Other languages will often make a distinction not familiar to us, having two words where we have one. But the opposite also happens

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/lingsci.htm
100. A Reflective Interlude What is 'the study of language' anyway? (15 Nov 02) A survey of the wide variety of ways to study language, all of which we group in the field we call linguistics. A look at how many of these have been the subject of the first 99 Miniatures

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/borrow.htm
99. Borrowers and Lenders Languages enriching each other (1 Nov 02) The ways languages are constantly borrowing from each other is illuatrated by the way for many centuries English has borrowed extensively from Latin and French

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/gername.htm
98. Herr Weissgerber meets Ms. Wisecarver German names in America (15 Oct 02) The four main ways in which German surnames are derived. Families brought these names fo America, where many of them have been anglicized

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/interrog.htm
97. Ask a Simple Question... Though how you ask it is anything but (1 Oct 02) The many complexities we subconsciously follow in asking various types of questions in English

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/Qvalue.htm
96. Harmony or Cacophony The Global Language System (15 Sep 02) Some commentary on the Dutch sociologist Abram de Swaan's book Words of the World: The Global Language System

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/onomato.htm
95. Your Mouse Just Went "CLICK" Speech sounds imitating natural ones (1 Sep 02) How languages around the world hear and imitate common sounds by means of speech sounds. A cross-linguistic exploration of onomatopoeia

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/caucasus.htm
94. A Linguistic Jigsaw Puzzle Languages in the Caucasus (15 Aug 02) The Caucasus is home to a complex mix of languages belonging to three major language families. The Caucasian family is a dense network of related languages in a small area

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/dialgeog.htm
93. What Part of the U.S. Are you From? Your speech is giving that away (1 Aug 02) The geographical distribution of dialect speech in the U.S. - especially the East and South - has been intensively studied for many years

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/exocen.htm
92. Hot Coffee and Hot Air "The coffee is hot", so why not " ... ? (15 Jul 02) The combination adjective plus noun can be either endocentric (hot coffee) or exocentric (hot air). An explanation of what we mean by this important distinction

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/machtrans.htm
91. Machines and Human Language Why do they still translate so clumsily? (1 Jul 02) Mechanical or machine translation (MT) has been intensively developed for years, but in spite of advances and the many practical applications today, it remains inexact. Do we know why?

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/frisian.htm
90. Brea en Griene Tsiis English really does have a "kissin' cousin" (15 Jun 02) The closest relative of the English language is Frisian, spoken mainly along the North Sea coast. Though many similarities are familiar-looking, a text in Frisian can look unintelligible to us

(E?)(L1) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/demonstr.htm
89. A Chat about THIS and THAT What people around the world point to (1 Jun 02) Demonstratives (this-that, these-those) exist in every language, but the distinctions made in pointing things out varyt widely

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/cliche.htm

88. Read this with Bated --- The cons and pros of clichés (15 May 02) It is good advice to avoid clichés, at least the more shopworn of them. But although cliches have a rather bad press, they are indispensable and have their place in our usage

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/word.htm

87. YOULLMIXUPEVERYDAYWORDS How many words in the title? (1 May 02) Here we tackle one of the most elusive questions in linguistics: what is a word? Does what we write between spaces have a connection to what we know of its meaning?

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/click.htm

86. Eddies in the Speech Stream Exotic language sounds (15 Apr 02) Many languages have speech sounds that strike our ear as very unfamiliar. Among the most exotic are the click sounds in some of the Bantu languages in Africa. A new words about how they are produced

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/recover.htm

85. A Verbal Time Machine Listening in to the echoes of the past (1 Apr 02) Another tongue-in-cheek one: Analyzing long-dissipated sound waves to recover speech from the distant past

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/longcpd.htm

84. Web Site Language Miniature Thoughts Understanding long noun compounds (15 Mar 02) We have explored two-member compounds (Miniature No. 1), and now we go on to noun compounds made up of three to six members

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/standard.htm

83. That 'American English' Sound What we're doing with our pronunciation (1 Mar 02) Even though there is no official 'standard American English', we all follow a surprisingly similar standard of pronunciation usage. How does it originate and how is it propagated? What changes are going on now?

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/infer.htm

82. Voices from the Past Inferring pronunciations of long ago (15 Feb 02) There are no recordings of speech of more than a century ago, yet through a series of inferences from written sources we can get a reasonably good idea what it sounded like

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/zug.htm

81. Pull Enough to Pull it off The 'core meaning' we sense in a word (1 Feb 02) How a word can have a wide variety of meanings that are all somehow related is illustrated by the many meanings of the German word Zug

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/stresshift.htm

80. Does This Contrast Contrast? It matters which syllable gets the punch (15 Jan 02) Many 2-syllable words in English that can be either a noun or a verb have a predictable stress pattern: stress on the first syllable if noun, stress on second syllable if verb

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/parad.htm

79. The Language of Paradise Myths of the confusion of tongues (1 Jan 02) Myths around the world, of which the Tower of Babel myth is one, attempt to account for how come there are so many different languages

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/gene.htm

78. "My Genes Made me Do it!" Genetic pathways in language (15 Dec 01) A severe language disorder running genetically through a family has led investigators closer to identifying a gene that seems to play an important role in language

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/youpol.htm

77. Distance versus Solidarity The word 'you' and society's status lines (1 Dec 01) Many language, including most of the European languages except English, have two different words for you depending on some form of a 'polite' vs. 'familiar' distinction

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/aphasia.htm

76. Your Language Escapes Aphasia and what it reveals (15 Nov 01) Different types of aphasia resulting from injury or medical malfunction reveal two clearly distinct language centers in the brain, and two main types of language impairment result

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/chinese.htm

75. Chinese Writing What they see in those characters (1 Nov 01) Chinese characters may look like random scratches to us, but they are based on an ingenious system. Some analysis of how they are composed

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/light.htm

74. TAKE a Look Here Lightweights in the verbal world (15 Oct 01) A small number of verbs function as what is known as light verbs, having little specific meaning of their own but mainly serving to support a neighboring noun or other verb

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/major.htm

73. From CHINESE to IQUITO Giant languages (and tiny ones too) (1 Oct 01) The languages of the world are of vastly differing size, from Mandarin Chinese with many millions of speakers down to those spoken by fewer than a hundred people

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/eviden.htm

72. All of This is True But you'll have to take my word for it (15 Sep 01) Evidentials are grammatical devices in many languages by which the speaker is obliged to specify the source and reliability of something said. Some examples from Native American languages

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/colloq.htm

71. "Jeet Jet?" How we think we talk and how we really talk (1 Sep 01) When we write, we normally spell out individual words fully and clearly, but when we speak, if we don't want to sound artificial the result is often quite different

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/compar.htm

70. Odder, maybe the Oddest The many ways languages compare things (15 Aug 01) All languages have ways of comparing, but the ways they do it and the distinctions they choose to make vary widely

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/texting.htm

69. W8, dont UC? The 'Text Messaging' script (1 Aug 01) Among many cell phone users, a new form of written English is emerging: the 'text messaging' code. A few examples

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/state.htm

68. This Might Back you Down Those tricky 'change of state' verbs (15 July 01) There are some verbs in English that are often used in ways that seem to 'push the envelope'. Are we making grammatical mistakes or broadening the resources of the language?

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/beech.htm

67. Reading and Writing Books The ancient beech tree in our lives (1 July 01) Some exploration of the words for book, read, write shows that the beech tree once played an important role in the development of this aspect of the culture

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/india.htm

66. Speech, Script, State The colorful language garden of India (15 Jun 01) In India it is constitutionally provided that each constituent state is to declare its own official language. There are 18 of these, and mopst of them use a script unique to that language

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/deacon.htm

65. Human Language as a Virus Are we infected with the need to symbolize? (1 June 01) A discussion of Terence Deacon's book The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/welsh.htm

64. Appearances can be Deceiving Why we call two languages 'related' (15 May 01) The important concept of relatedness of languages is illustrated with some examples from Welsh, an Indo-European language related to English but unintelligible to us

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/eulangs.htm

63. EU Language Year 2001 Celebrating diversity but with a hangover (1 May 01) As the number of languages of the countries accepted into the European Union increases rapidly, the problems of translating between all these languages expand explosively

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/notions.htm

62. Notions about Language A quick quiz on your thoughts (15 Apr 01) The reader is asked what the answer would be to seven questions on common assumptions about language. Widespread responses to all seven are called into question

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/babel.htm

61. The Tower of Babel Is there a reality behind the story? (1 Apr 01) Another tongue-in-cheek one: archeological finds show that the Tower of Babel myth about the diversity of languages in the world is based on reality, an early form of computer technology

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/prim.htm

60. Me Tarzan, you Jane Are there primitive languages around? (15 Mar 01) The assumption one occasionally hears to the effect that somewhere there still exist languages in a primitive state of development is based on a confusion of "primitive linguistic structure" and "pre-technological/pre-literate culture"

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/transl.htm

59. At a Loss for Words The bilingual dictionary: which meaning? (1 Mar 01) Pitfalls in using a bilingual dictionary in translating from one language into another. How do we tell which of several equivalent meanings to choose?

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/case.htm

58. Signposts in Languages Showing us what's where in the sentence (15 Feb 01) The Japanese language has an elegant and 'learner-friendly' system of particles that act as signposts signaling which is the subject, which the object, and others

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/beat.htm

57. "X Beats Y" Synonyms on the sports pages (1 Feb 01) Newspaper stories about sports competitions offer an astonishing variety of ways of reporting that a given team beat another, showing once again the expressive resources our language offers us

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/rhythm.htm

56. This is Where it's At But it's not that big of a deal (15 Jan 01) Why do so many people so regularly throw in extra words such as that 'at' and 'of' in the title and subtitle? Some insight into this is gained when we consider the rhythms of speech

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/empty.htm

55. Want to Read This? Things there and yet not there (1 Jan 01) Sometimes as we speak an important word is omitted and merely implied, and often there are grammatical circumstances where a word must necessarily be omitted

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/cloth.htm

54. From Denim to Gauze Words from everywhere on our tongues (15 Dec 00) Thanks to millennia of trade, our words for many kinds of cloth have come to us along with the product from all corners of the globe

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/topic.htm

53. As to this Topic, All that follows is comment (1 Dec 00) A grammatical device in many languages called topic and comment labels the topic about to be said something about. Some examples from Chinese

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/dutch.htm

52. A POX on Them All! Diseases can make good cursing (15 Nov 00) Cursing someone by wishing some disease or disorder on them (as in "a plague on them all!") used to be common in European languages, but today the Dutch are the only ones who still do this on a significant scale

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/verb.htm

51. "In the Beginning was the VERB" Actors and their roles in the sentence (1 Nov 00) In a real sense, the verb is the nucleus of the sentence, and each one requires its own set of other parts of speech along with it to form a grammatical sentence

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/metaphor.htm

50. Input for your Database The human mind as just another computer (15 Oct 00) For a very long time, metaphors have helped us grasp some of the complexity of the human mind. In recent time it is the computer that has been providing most of the metaphors.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/redund.htm

49. This Essay is Redundant The predictability in all languages (1 Oct 00) Redundancy plays a very important role in language. Stylistic redundancy should no doubt be avoided, but all languages necessarily employ a high degree of grammatical redundancy.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/give.htm

48. Just GIVE me a Minute Expressing 'giving' in human societies (15 Sep 00) The word give is particularly interesting, since languages around the world treat the fundamental 3-way concept of someone giving something to someone in so many different ways.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/arabic.htm

47. Cold Cuts Crowd in Deli Presenting grammatical personalities (1 Sep 00) The Arabic language provides some particularly clear examples of how a given grammatical function can be expressed unambiguously in the forms of words.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/brain.htm

46. Bilinguals and the Brain Storing our language knowledge (15 Aug 00) Present-day scanning technology has made it increasingly clearer that one’s native language is stored in a different area of the brain than any language learned after the age of 8 or so.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/syntax.htm

45. Visible and Invisible Words and what gives them life (1 Aug 00) When we think about language, the first thing in our thoughts are words. The grammar that ties them together is invisible to us, but it is there in all its marvelous complexity.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/ethical.htm

44. My Dog Died on me Pronouns of 'caring' (15 Jul 00) A regular feature of many languages is the ethical dative, a pronoun indicating that someone - most often the speaker - is directly affected by what is said.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/dangling.htm

43. Driving Along, the House Appeared Participles that 'dangle' (1 Jul 00) Here we take a look at the infamous dangling participle and a bit about why we so easily fall into them. Are some worse than others?

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/latin.htm

42. The Riot Mushrooms Is "The Mushrooms Riot" the same thing? (15 Jun 00) Latin is used as an example of a language that expresses grammatical relations with a rich set of inflections, doing the same job we do in modern English with many more words.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/lojban.htm

41. Do you Speak Logic? An invented language with an attitude (1 Jun 00) Any natural language such as English often underspecifies or overspecifies the ‘logic’ of a situation, which for centuries has led to the invention of logical languages. A recent example is the one called Lojban.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/herenow.htm

40. The HERE and the NOW But when is 'now', and where is 'here'? (15 May 00) The words here and now reflect a very primitive level of human understanding. Their reference depends entirely on context, what is being talked about.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/women.htm

39. Female Grammar Men's speech and women's speech (1 May 00) In some languages, the style of speaking and even the grammar (that is, not just vocabulary) is distinctly different for women than for men.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/family.htm

38. Siblings, Cousins, Ancestors ... Language families and the mists of time (15 Apr 00) The concept of a family of languages is illustrated by comparing some words in related Indo-European languages. Other well-investigated language families are also listed.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/cats.htm

37. Catty Remarks New evidence for animal speech (1 Apr 00) This spoof elaborates on the ‘claim’ that cats - especially black ones - are more able to understand human speech than we were aware of.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/voice.htm

36. "Computer: Go do it!" Speech recognition by machine (15 Mar 00) Computer speech recognition programs are constantly improving in reliability, but that last few percent of reliability is elusive, being dependant on social understanding that is uniquely human.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/rless.htm

35. So Fah, Dahling, it's a Boah! What we communicate with(out) R after vowel (1 Mar 00) A recent study shows that the dropping of r after vowel - which most of us associate with coastal New England - can have a whole series of social implications.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/whorf.htm

34. Language as a 'Lens' A kaleidoscope of different worlds? (15 Feb 00) One of the oldest philosophical questions about language, debated at least since the time of Plato, is whether the structure of a person’s language constrains or influences how that person thinks.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/do.htm

33. Understand You Not These Words? What 400 years can do in a language (1 Feb 00) Today we have to use the auxiliary verb do in negative and interrogative sentences (She walks the dog but She does not walk the dog and Does she walk the dog?) but it was not always this way.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/langs.htm

32. A Tower of Babel How many languages are there in the world? (15 Jan 00) The subtitle reports one of the most frequently asked questions about language. Though defining ‘a language’ is not as straightforward as it may seem, some totals are given.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/cyber.htm

31. Do you Like this Cyberessay? New words for the new century (1 Jan 00) Just as any other language - especially those of advanced technological societies - English is constant expanding the meanings of words and inventing new ones. Some examples.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/eskimo.htm

30. The Eskimos' 100 Words for Snow Why everybody seems to know this 'fact' (15 Dec 99) The assurance that “The Eskimos have 100 words for snow” has become an ineradicable part of the English language. Few are troubled by the fact that it is not based on any factual reality.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/convers.htm

29. A Verbal Seesaw Our daily socialization in conversations (1 Dec 99) Probably the most common use of the language is the many casual one-on-one exchanges that we all participate in every day. Some analysis and a few details about this unique form of collaboration.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/negation.htm

28. Nothing is Indispensable Why all languages have their way of saying 'not' (15 Nov 99) Some provision, in whatever grammatical form, for being able to say that something is NOT the case (negation) is fundamental to all languages, and is an essential human attribute.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/kines.htm

27. Speaking is 'Body Language' Punctuating sentences with the eyebrows (1 Nov 99) Speaking is not just the articulation of a series of vowels and consonants, but is accompanied by an elaborate set of gestures and facial expressions.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/writing.htm

26. Let me Write that Down A technological marvel we take for granted (15 Oct 99) We are scarcely to conceive of ‘language’ without its written form being in the forefront of our consciousness. Yet in the history of spoken language, writing is a relatively recent invention.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/child.htm

25. Why, That's Child's Play Learning a language without even trying (1 Oct 99) Children perform the feat of learning their native language in an astonishingly short time. This acquisition proceeds everywhere, in all languages, according to a definite and predictable sequence.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/causat.htm

24. 'Lie' and 'Lay' are Fraternal Twins The causative relation between pairs of words (15 Sep 99) English has a number of pairs of verbs related along a causative dimension (lie and lay=’cause to lie’), and many languages have a highly developed system of forming causatives. An example is Arabic.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/the.htm

23. The Commonest Word in the Language The social role of the word "the" (1 Sep 99) The word "the" is so ubiquitous that we hardly notice it. But it has some surprisingly expressive syntactic and even social functions.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/univ.htm

22. Chinese, English, Navajo, Zulu ... Is there anything they have in common? (15 Aug 99) Languages around the globe seem to differ from each other in an almost infinite number of ways. This looks at some things that all languages everywhere have in common.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/rules.htm

21. There are Rules and 'Rules' An idea to always fix your sights on (1 Aug 99) Here we are dealing with a question about which many people hold strong opinions. What do we mean by ‘rules’ of language? A distinction is made between grammatical rules and social ones that happen to be about language.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/navajo.htm

20. How Different can Languages be? The grammatical mosaic of Navajo (15 Jul 99) Some languages see the world in terms of categories that are totally different from English. This is illustrated by means of the Navajo verbs for handling objects of various consistencies.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/headline.htm

19. British Left Waffles on Falklands Why do some headlines sound so funny? (1 Jul 99) In headlines, in the interest of brevity many key function words (prepositions, articles, pronouns) are left out. Occasionally this results in an unintended comical ambiguity.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/alice.htm

18. Curiouser and Curiouser The language world Alice blunders into (15 Jun 99) In Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll created a dream world partly by using the English language in ways that are weirdly at odds with our ‘logical’ everyday English.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/tense.htm

17. It Really IS Time you Thought Of the present, the past and the future (1 Jun 99) We explore what we mean by the tense forms of a verb (such as past, present, and future), and demonstrate that there is little match between these tense forms and the time meanings they supposedly convey.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/@name.htm

16. "We Call that Symbol '@' ", She Said What do you think she called it? (15 May 99) We take a tour through the names by which the familiar symbol @ is known around the world. Its shape suggests a variety of names in different languages.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/black.htm

15. "It ain't no cat can't get in no coop" The rich language of the inner city (1 May 99) The special language spoken by many African Americans, particularly in urban areas, is not ‘poor English’ but an expressive language with grammatical rules of its own.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/ee.htm

14. When he Gazes at her, is she the Gazee? A simple suffix, but we communicate a lot with it (15 Apr 99) At first sight it looks as if the common and increasingly popular suffix -ee as in amputee, muggee means something like ‘the recipient of an action’, but we find that it has many more dimensions than this.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/asl.htm

12. Silent Eloquence The sophistication of American Sign Language (15 Mar 99) ASL is a fully expressive language with a grammar of its own. By ingenious use of complex expressions and gestures in space, it is able to do many things beyond the capabilities of standard spoken English.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/and.htm

11. And What's All This? 'What a word means' is not all that simple (1 Mar 99) The function of the word and is to couple two 'somethings' together, but it has many meanings well beyond that. In what sense does a word ‘mean’ something?

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/extinct.htm

10. The Dodo's Fate How languages become extinct (15 Feb 99) When a language is no longer spoken by anyone, we might say that it has ‘become extinct’. Today many of the world’s languages are ‘endangered’ and will disappear by the end of this century. A look at how this happens.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/clusters.htm

9. Unpronounceable Sounds Every language has them - except English of course (1 Feb 99) Nearly all languages have speech sounds that are unfamiliar to us as English speakers. A look at some consonant combinations that seem oddly unpronounceable to us.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/progress.htm

8. Is Silence Being Golden? Our English progressive is difficult (15 Jan 99) We use the progressive (as in You’re reading now) effortlessly practically any time we speak, and we are unaware of the many subtle distinctions that make it very difficult for learners of English to catch on to.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/joyce.htm

7. Finnegans Wake English James Joyce's double focus (1 Jan 99) In his long novel Finnegans Wake, James Joyce plays with the English language in seemingly endless ways. He is constantly creating puns that awaken unexpected associations.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/perform.htm

6. I Hereby Warn you ... Or, doing things with words (15 Dec 98) Sometimes when we use language we don’t only describe something (as in I hear you’re the winner) but intend the sentence itself as performing an action (as in I declare you the winner). We do this in multiple ways.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/evolve.htm

5. The Evolution of Language From communicating to imagining (1 Dec 98) No one knows how or when language first evolved because past language did not leave us any evidence to trace. But we can make some surmises about how this might have proceeded.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/they.htm

4. If someone wants to disagree, they can Can we really all be using wrong grammar? (15 Nov 98) Many people object to the use of a plural pronoun to refer to a singular, as in the title. But they fail to recognize that English has evolved here a useful non-specific - and therefore also gender-free - pronoun.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/whistle.htm

3. Whistling a Language Communication by speech melody alone (1 Nov 98) There are languages in the world in which speech melody plays such an important role (tone languages) that a significant proportion of a message can be communicated merely by whistling sentences. Some examples.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/pidgin.htm

2. Is 'Pidgin English' Just a Makeshift? A sophisticated bridge between languages (15 Oct 98) A pidgin is a modified form of a language used for communication by speakers of other languages who could otherwise not understand each other. Many languages have served as the basis for a pidgin.

(E?)(L?) http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/cpd4.htm

1. A Bonehead's Headbone Noun compounds give a lot of bang for the buck (1 Oct. 98) Two-member noun compounds (as in race car, cat food) are a very common feature of English. Normally the first member limits the scope of the second, but the two members may stand in any of a variety of relations to each other.

T

U

Uni Michigan

(E?)(L?) http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/wow
A World of Words - Professor John Lawler's page for his freshman Etymology class contains an amazing number of language-related links. Why, there's even a link to the Dakota Language Home Page here!

Uni Pennsylvenia - Phonological Atlas

(E?)(L?) http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas
Labov's Phonological Atlas of North America
home page of the TELSUR PROJECT at the Linguistics Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania
the Atlas of North American English [ANAE], (formerly, the Phonological Atlas of North America);

Uni Wuppertal

(E?)(L?) http://ntopac1.bib.uni-wuppertal.de/bibliothek.html/wup/ghb/node124.html
DPA-DQW Amerikanisches Englisch

useit
American English vs. British English for Web Content

(E?)(L?) http://www.useit.com/alertbox/american-british-english.html

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, December 1, 2008:
Summary:
Users pay attention to details in a site's writing style, and they'll notice if you use the wrong variant of the English language.
There are many differences between American and British English, including:
...

utep - Lurline Coltharp Collection of Onomastics

(E?)(L?) http://libraryweb.utep.edu/onomastics.html

V

verbatimmag
The Language Quarterly

(E?)(L?) http://www.verbatimmag.com/

Verbatim magazine, edited by Erin McKeen:
Verbatim is the only magazine of language and linguistics for the layperson. We write about words and their uses with verve and humor, concentrating on English in all its variety and all the fun parts of other languages. Names, puns and proverbs are also topics of interest. Puzzles, book reviews, SIC! SIC! SIC! and more round out each issue.

Das Angebot ist im Wesentlichen kostenpflichtig. Aber es gibt auch einige frei zugängliche Seiten (09.11.2004):

We're hoping to soon have the complete run of VERBATIM back issues available online, and searchable, too. Until then, this is what we have, in varying formats.

(E?)(L?) http://www.verbatimmag.com/all_toc.html

Vol. XXVI No. 2 Spring 2001 PDF file
Vol. XXVI No. 1 Winter 2001 PDF file
Vol. XXV No. 4 Autumn 2000 PDF file
Vol. XXV No. 3 Summer 2000 PDF file
Vol. XXV No. 2 Spring 2000 PDF file
Vol. XXV No. 1 Winter 2000 PDF file
Vol. XXIV No. 4 Autumn 1999 PDF file
Vol. XXIV No. 3 Summer 1999 Full Text Articles
Vol. XXIV No. 2 Spring 1999 Full Text Articles
Vol. XXIV No. 1 Winter 1999 Table of Contents Only
Vol. XXIII No. 4 Autumn 1998 Table of Contents Only
The World According to Student Bloopers by Richard Lederer
New Blood in the Namestream by John Tittensor

SIC! SIC! SIC! is a regular feature of every issue, in which we rely on readers to send us funny errors made in (thank goodness) other publications. (And those on signs, in form letters, etc., etc. We're capable of finding the funny errors in our own publication without help!) If you find a howler that you'd like to share, send it to either mailing address below or click here. (75 (kostenlose) Seiten)

Unter den (kostenpflichtigen) Beiträgen, die der Index "Authors and Articles" enthält, sind sicherlich auch einige interessante etymologische Abhandlungen:
Volume Number Author Title

I 1 Michaelis, Ramona R. Dictionaries of Hard Words Come Easy
I 1 Bolinger, Dwight Darn, Durn, Down, Doon, Damn
I 1 Wescott, Roger W. Word Chains in English
I 1 Landau, Sidney I. Sexual intercourse in American College Dictionaries
I 2 Wescott, Roger W. Women, Wife-men, and Sexist Bias
I 2 Lloyd, Paul M. Binomials and Trinomials
I 3 Lees, R. B. Elements of Semantic Change
I 3 Urdang, Laurence An Intolerant View of Intolerance
I 4 Read, Allen Walker Family Words in English
I 4 Fowkes, Robert A. Phonatics
I 4 Sears, Donald A. Ameritalian
II 1 Fowkes, Robert A. Irish Bulls in Sundry China Shops
II 1 Urdang, Laurence The Art and Technique of Citation Reading
II 1 Colby, Elbridge Bureaucratic Possessives
II 1 Ashley, Leonard R. N. Mr. Przybysz and the Czech O'Shaunnessy
II 1 Gilman, Mary Louise This Peculiar Boston Accent
II 2 Algeo, John Portmanteaus, Telescopes, Jumbles
II 2 Fowkes, Robert A. Caustic Causatives and Lowest Common Denominatives
II 2 Gummere, John F. Clicks Are Very Common
II 2 Luce, Stanford L. The Languishing Art
II 2 Wescott, Roger W. Do Conferees Photograph Well?
II 2 Bryant, Margaret M. The Expanded Modifier
II 3 Read, Allen Walker You Know What
II 3 Fowkes, Robert A. Talking Turkey
II 3 Hornos, Axel Conjugal Oddities
II 4 Price, Bruce D. Noun Overuse Phenomenon Article
II 4 Slocum, Russell A Quick Fox Jumps over the Cwm Fjord-Bank Glyph Biz
II 4 Shulman, David Antedate Dictionary Citations
II 4 Jewett, Don L. ; D.Phil Vengeful Verse: Revenge Reversed
II 4 Safire, William Secrets of `American English' May Yield to Dialect Geography
II 4 Donze, Sister Mary Terese Where the Harts Wear Pants
III 1 Hornos, Axel "Ouch!" he said in Japanese
III 1 Flaumenhaft, A. S. Can We Write This Wrong?
III 1 White, James D. Mrs. Malaprop's Bicentennial
III 1 Cevasco, G. A. Ellipsis ... Faulty and Otherwise
III 1 Flaumenhaft, A.S. Grass Roots
III 1 Rehmus, E.E. The Mysterious Origin of the Tarot
III 1 Morgan, Arthur J. A Bicentennial Pair: George & Patsy
III 1 Donnelly, Mabel C. Giving Up the Ghost
III 2 Sears, Donald A. Grammar: The Terms Betray the Bias
III 2 Fowkes, Robert A. Esrever Hsilgne
III 2 LaRoche, Nancy Tom Sawyer Whitewashed
III 2 Eisiminger, Sterling Gullah: A Historical Note and Quiz
III 3 Hicks, Steven R. That Dirty Bird
III 3 Brown, Ruth Hear Finish Before (Pause) You?
III 3 Caffrey, Ph.D., John G. Menu Barbarisms
III 3 Morgan, Henry The Cape Cod Reader
III 3 Imholtz, Jr., August A. Charmed and Other Quarks
III 3 Woodworth, Douglas R. A Plea for Plain Talk
III 3 Fowkes, Robert A. Irish Bulls--Second Series
III 3 Woods, W.M. More About the Name Cowbird for Molothrus ater ater
III 3 Jewell, Lynne Tieslau Animal-Like Adjectives
III 4 Schulz, Clair Mail Lib
III 4 Mellor, William Bancroft Aunt Minnie's Chicken Talk
III 4 Urdang, Laurence Prurient Prudes
III 4 Wescott, Roger W. Ooglification in American English Slang
III 4 Urdang, Laurence Permission, Admission, Remission and the Missionaries
III 4 Kidney , Walter C. The Seating of Zotz
III 4 Gross, Mary E. Traveler's Credo
III 4 Romm, Ethel Grodzins Dash It All
IV 1 Revard, Carter Deciphering The Four-letter Word in a Medieval Manuscript's Satire on Friars
IV 1 Schulz, Clair The Seat of Our Affections
IV 1 Tankard, Elaine F.; Tankard, Jr., James W. The Growing Use and Abuse of Literally
IV 1 Von Bruns, Elaine Illicit Threesomes
IV 1 Herbold II, John O. To Understand America (and Americans)....
IV 1 Schulman, J. Frank The Sinister Side of the Language
IV 1 Perkins, Ellen The New Orthography
IV 1 Morgan, Arthur J. The Encompassing Circle
IV 1 Felton, Gary S. Exceptions to the Rule
IV 1 Dillon, Jay More -ine Adjectives
IV 1 Johnston, Caryl Notes from the Compound World
IV 1 Pollock, Alexander J. Self-referring Words
IV 1 Schultz, Claire K. Mail Lib--Rejoinder
IV 1 Gumfudgin, Ormly "Ormonyms"
IV 2 Schulz, Clair We Shall Know Them By Their Roots
IV 2 Ferris, David C. Scoring Jargon
IV 2 Stahr, Alden Twenty-six Sticks
IV 3 von Raffler-Engel, Walburga We Do Not Talk Only With Our Mouths
IV 3 Cohen, Philip Michael Winking Words
IV 3 Birch, Robert L. The "Uphill Mississippi" Phenomenon and Openness to nfamiliar Ideas
IV 3 Sinnema, John R. KILometer or kiLOMeter?
IV 3 Hinton, Sam More Than Meets the -ine
IV 3 Luzzatto, Jack Words Across the Sea: the British Crossword Comes to America
IV 4 Montgomery, Jean Regional Report No. 1--The Bay Area
IV 4 Luzzatto, Jack How to Turn a Baseball Phrase
IV 4 Hinton, Sam Moribund Metaphors Rise Again
IV 4 Beresky, Andrew E. Bleep That Slur!
IV 4 Hawes, Donald Unconsciously Appropriate and Inappropriate Metaphors
IV 4 Griffith, Francis Humpty Dumpty's World
IV 4 Knepler, Myrna Schweppes, le `drink' des gens raffinés
IV 4 Todd, Charles L. My Grandmother's "Spaghetta"
V 1 Norman, Andrew E. Tosspots and Wraprascals
V 1 Hill, Archibald A. "Till Death Us Do Part"
V 1 Olive, Bruce B.; Revard, Carter A Note and a Query
V 1 Harding, Vera L. Shocking News from the West
V 1 Bocca, Geoffrey If It Isn't In Writing...
V 1 DuBois, Barbara R. Off Base
V 1 Price, Bruce D. A Metalinguistic Inquiry into F
V 1 Miller, Jeff You Say "Lieutenant" I Say "Leftenant": Linguistic Notes on the Canadian Unity Crisis
V 2 Urdang, Laurence "You know what I mean..."
V 2 Hawes, Donald Names in Fiction
V 2 Haugaard, Kay Don't Call Me an "Adult!" -- I'm a Mature Human Being
V 2 Devereux, Robert Porcine Semantics
V 2 Perrin, Noel Verbifying in America
V 2 Titcomb, Caldwell Nonplussed by Plus
V 2 Wilson, M.D., J. Walter On again, off again, Finnigin
V 2 Fowkes, Robert A. A Missile-any of Shots by a Poor Marksman
V 2 Kraus, Herb So What Else Is Nous?
V 2 Hyder, Clyde K. peter (as in peter out)
V 3 Neumann, J.H. Jonson and the Talmudists
V 3 Colum, Padraic Copper Beeches
V 3 Rehmus, E.E. The Arabic Star-Names
V 3 Edwards, W.R. Again and Ageyn and Agane
V 3 Wells, Malcolm B-P Words
V 3 Howard, Philip English English
V 4 Mohan, Jag Hindi Filmi English Is Coming!
V 4 Fowkes, Robert A. Out Is In--But I'm Not Into Out
V 4 Moncada, E.J. Traduttore Traditore
V 4 Hall, Kenneth E. "Indri! Indri!"
V 4 Howard, Philip English English
V 4 Jenkinson, Edward B. How to Keep Dictionaries out of the Public Schools
V 4 Walsh, Francis J. How Off-track Betting Endangers Our Mother Tongue: Draining Color from the Horseplayer's Gift of Gab
VI 1 Eisiminger, Sterling Colorful Language
VI 1 Siwek, M.D., Jay Body English
VI 1 Turner, G. W. Antipodean English (Infinite Variety)
VI 1 Cragg, Sgt. Maj. Dan GI for the IG
VI 1 Cohen, Gerald "My name is Hanes"
VI 1 Luzzatto, Jack Epenthetically Speaking
VI 1 Howard, Philip Philip Howard on English English
VI 2 Miller, Jeff "Inward Seethings": On Euphemism
VI 2 Shapiro, Norman R. ,Is Is Is
VI 2 DuBois, Barbara R. Preposition Pollution
VI 2 Niebrzydowski, Rev. Walter Theological Bafflegab or How to Unsay It
VI 2 von Bruns, Elaine Namesakes
VI 2 Howard, Philip English English
VI 2 DaSilva, Russell Concerning Aspersions
VI 2 Devereux, Robert Mantic Mania
VI 2 Fowkes, Robert A. Juncture: Where It Sat
VI 2 Morris, Donald R. Say, You Have a Point There, I Guess
VI 2 Allen, A. Adrian A Hodd Hanthology
VI 2 Dyer, Frederick C. Is Latin Briefer Than English
VI 3 Douglas, Peter A. The Bows' Stratagem
VI 3 Turner, G.W. ANTIPODEAN ENGLISH (The Dinkum Oil)
VI 3 Howard, Philip English English (Thesaurus 1)
VI 3 Russell, Ray Nabokov's Dirty Tricks
VI 3 Steinberg, David Bartlett's Ain't Got It
VI 3 Cohen, Harry English in Dutch
VI 3 Karges, Joann Rhyme and Jingle
VI 3 Christian, Rebecca Fallin' In with the Great-Aunts
VI 3 Shapiro, Norman R. Watching All the Guys Go By
VI 4 Russell, Ray The "Wicked"; Bibles or, Let Him Who is Without Sin Among You Cast the First Line of Type
VI 4 Bralley, Patricia The Beginning in a Word
VI 4 Coughlan, Steve The Exception That Proves the Rule
VI 4 Sadler, J. D. How's That Again?
VI 4 Way, Warren Tupper Breaking the Law of Averages
VI 4 Haugaard, Kay Take a Left on Sore Finger Road
VI 4 Lazerson, Barbara Hunt Naming the Flora and the Fauna
VI 4 Howard, Philip English English
VI 4 Galef, David Shortcuts
VI 4 Blaustein, Albert P. The Zimbabwe Constitution: On Negotiations
VI 4 Luzzatto, Jack Epenthetical Follow-up
VI 4 Haldeman, Philip Writer's Blindness
VII 1 Howard, Virginia A Pooh-Poohey
VII 1 Devereux, Robert Bears and Lions Growl
VII 1 Winters, Eric Odd Couples
VII 1 Fowkes, Robert A. The Good Life
VII 1 Schulz, Clair Score-bored
VII 1 John L. Idol, Jr., Mubblefubbles: An Old-Fashioned Bout with the Black Dog; or Coming Down in the Mouth with a Case of the Humpy-Grumpies
VII 1 Howard, Philip English English
VII 1 Way, Warren Tupper Unlikely? That's the Name of the Game
VII 1 Eisiminger, Sterling Borrowing and Biases in German and English
VII 1 Lederer, Richard Orthographe Mirabile
VII 1 Emblen, D.L. CORRIGENDA
VII 1 Cummins, Joan Sill Edible Endearments
VII 1 Richardson, Jacques G. ETYMOLOGICA OBSCURA
VII 2 Cassidy, Frederic G. Unofficial Sectional City Names
VII 2 Panzer, Martin Simon Says
VII 2 Devereux, Robert How to Agglutinate
VII 2 Higgins, James W. Master Malaprop
VII 2 Turner, George W. Antipodean English (Socko Names)
VII 2 Howard, Philip English English (Hyperbole)
VII 2 Cohen, Harry The Strong Sex
VII 2 ? Funnin' Games
VII 2 Costikyan, Greg Fanguage
VII 2 Mayo, Dick Oklahoma! Okay!
VII 2 ? A Place for Everything ...
VII 2 Sadler, J. D. Confusion Compounded
VII 3 Fowkes, Robert A. Blends, Blands, and Blunds
VII 3 Lillard, Richard G. Before I am Too Late
VII 3 Shapiro, Norman R. More Turkish Agglutinative Delights
VII 3 Howard, Philip English English (The Family Talpidae)
VII 3 Faerber, Charles N. Troy Romps--Hector Blanks Creeks on Two-hitter
VII 3 Ellis, Weldon The Exception That Proves the Rule
VII 3 Hornos, Axel Street Names Fun Game
VII 3 Henley, Elton F. Additional "Odd Couples"
VII 3 Dibble, Brian Ormonyms/Junctures
VII 4 Michael Gorman, English as she is spoke: The new guide of the conversation in Portuguese and English in two parts, by Pedro Caroline
VII 4 Turner, G. W. Antipodean English (New Australian)
VII 4 DuBois, Barbara R. S? Yes!
VII 4 Hendley, W. dark Fringe Benefits
VII 4 Ellner, M.D., Harold J. Pleonasties
VII 4 Randolph, Boris Found in VERBATIM
VII 4 Ward, Norman Indian File
VII 4 Tius, Mary M. Jade for the Jaded
VII 4 Devereux, Robert Arabic Loanwords
VII 4 Howard, Philip English English (Pronunciation)
VII 4 Fowkes, Robert A. Phreddy Is a Phynque: Two Graphs for One Sound
VII 4 Kreeger, M. M. Louisiana's German Cajuns, or, From Kissinger to Quisingre
VII 4 Zeidner, Martin A. The Unfairness of Articles
VII 4 L.U. Rivals the brilliance of genuine diamonds!
VII 4 L.U. How DARE You?
VII 4 Krueger, Janet A Saga
VIII 1 Fowkes, Robert A. Glaswegians and Liverpudlians, Denizens of No Mean Burys
VIII 1 Cassidy, Frederic G. "Unofficial Sectional City Names": Postscript
VIII 1 Schoenfeld, Robert Dating Customs
VIII 1 Stephenson, Fairfax A Nasal Encounter
VIII 1 Jones, Frank J. Bilingualism, or How to Be Tongue-tied in Two Languages
VIII 1 Howard, Philip English English (Wizard)
VIII 1 Coulson, Alan and Janice Pathologic Pantry
VIII 1 Lasseter, Victor Spy Euphemisms
VIII 1 Bolinger, Dwight To Bury the Hatchetmen
VIII 2 Tius, Mary M. Searching for Soma
VIII 2 Ellner, M.D., Harold J. Revolting Arabs, Injured Livers, and Streaking Indians
VIII 2 Salper, Don Proper Names into Adjectives
VIII 2 Howard, Philip English English
VIII 2 Fowkes, Robert A. Preface
VIII 3 Ames, Jay A Rose Could Be a Ruse or a Rouse
VIII 3 Garner, Bryan Meretricious Words, or The Quean's English
VIII 3 Howard, Philip English English
VIII 3 Turner, George W. Antipodean English (More Colorful Language)
VIII 3 Harris, Murry The Head of Coty's Wife
VIII 3 Galef, David Japanese English
VIII 3 Edwards, John Freud and the Gentiles
VIII 4 Lasseter, Victor John Le Carré's Spy Jargon: An Introduction and Lexicon
VIII 4 Feinsilver, Lillian Mermin When Paragons Nod
VIII 4 Turner, G. W. Antipodean English (Tok Bidjin)
IX 1 Russell, Ray The Christening
IX 1 Cohen, Harry Who Needs Enemies...?
IX 1 Howard, Philip English English
IX 1 Schur, Norman W. Negative Words
IX 1 Lederer, Richard English: The Lagoon of Nations
IX 1 Doh, Herman The Misplaced Stop
IX 1 Cannon, Garland 698 Japanese Loanwords in English
IX 1 Cochran, O.P., Leonard Witcraft, or The Growth of English
IX 1 Turner, George W. Antipodean English (The Flight of the Kiwi)
IX 1 Roberts, Dale Deadline
IX 1 Bach, Zellig Neither "God" Nor "Aleichem" Is a Last Name
IX 2 Chapman, Diane Eponymous Anonymous
IX 2 Urdang, Laurence Some Interesting Characteristics of Non-Indo-European Languages
IX 2 Lederer, Richard A Visit to the Language Zoo
IX 2 Guilday, John E. "by Golley, J.W."
IX 2 Howard, Philip English English
IX 2 Witlieb, Bernard L. A Memorable Agreement
IX 3 Devereux, Robert Southern Amerind Lexical Contributions
IX 3 Sarkesian, Barbara Of Chuffs, Topers, and Queans
IX 3 Jones, Frank J. RhoDislan Says It Different
IX 3 Drury, Donald A Harvest of Heteronyms
IX 3 Pinkerton, Edward C. The Way of a Wag
IX 3 Lederer, Richard You Said a Mouthful
IX 4 Lederer, Richard Prep School Slanguage
IX 4 Urdang, Laurence Degrees of Right and Wrong
IX 4 Dovey, Hugh Playing a Doublet Game
IX 4 Howard, Philip English English
IX 4 Urdang, Laurence A Word About Word Processing--Reminiscences
X 1 Cassidy, John R. Never Ask a Uruguayan Waitress for a Little Box: She Might Apply Her Foot to Your Eyelet
X 1 Ferguson, John Return to Grose
X 1 Urdang, Laurence The Failures of Success
X 1 Eisiminger, Sterling Language Etiquette
X 1 Kehl, D.G. Quasi Malediction: The Case of Linguistic Malentendu
X 1 Drury, Donald More Heteronyms: Addenda & Corrigenda
X 1 Turner, G.W. Antipodean English (Harmless Drudgery)
X 1 Ziegler, Robert E. Television Advertising and the Language of Myth
X 1 Powell, Marcy S. Traduttore Traditore
X 1 Howard, Philip English English
X 2 Feinsilver, Lillian Mermin Yiddish for Fun and Profit
X 2 Cohen, Harry Down to Earth in a Low Country
X 2 Bateson, John A Short History of Punctuation
X 2 Christian, Rebecca The Language of Consuming Passions
X 2 Miles, David L. No Sex, Please. We're English”
X 2 Faust, Richard L. Language Crimes: The Case of the Contending Relatives
X 2 Stephenson, P. Emlyn Baragouins and Penguins: The Celtic Connection
X 2 Hayes, Walter A Partridge for Christmas
X 2 Garner, Bryan A. Etymological Overlap: Analogous Derivatives in English
X 2 Howard, Philip English English
X 3 Garner, Bryan A. Learned Length and Thund'ring Sound: A Word-Lover's Panegyric
X 3 Dorff, Daniel The Meaning of Personal Names
X 3 Devereux, Robert More Than Just Manitou
X 3 Suhor, Charles The Pop Grammarians-- Good Intentions, Silly Ideas, and Doublespeak
X 3 Young, Charles M. An Architectonic of Verbs
X 3 Turner, G.W. Antipodean English (A Pet Avoision)
X 3 Faust, Richard L. Language Crimes: The Case of the Purloined Negatives
X 3 Truby, Henry M. Hwat, Hwere, Hwen, Hwich, ... and Hwy
X 3 Lederer, Richard A Compound Subject
X 3 Middleton, Thomas H. Clown Talk
X 3 Webb, Pamela The Language of History
X 4 Lazerson, Barbara Hunt The Blendsational Language of Contemporary Commerce
X 4 Hirschberg, Stephen E. Around the World by Dictionary
X 4 Trussel, Stephen Non-Native Tongues
X 4 Cochran, Leonard Chaucer's Fish
X 4 Faust, Richard L. Language Crimes: The Case of the Count's Companion
X 4 Turner, George W. ANTIPODEAN ENGLISH (From Woop Woop to Bullamakanka)
X 4 Perrick, Josephus A Grandfather Stories Glossary
X 4 Bennaton, Ann E. Please Don't F*** the Grass
X 4 Lederer, Richard Rhyme Without Reason
X 4 Tompkins, Pat Subtitles: Or, the Forgotten Words
X 4 Bach, Zellig The Imperative of Opposites
X 4 Clark, Thomas L. Gaming and/or Gambling: You pays your money...
XI 1 Ward, Norman And Oh, the Smell of Your Spile...
XI 1 Faust, Richard L. Language Crimes: The Case of the Missing Vocabulary
XI 1 Hinton, Sam The Meaning of Scientific Names
XI 1 Bland, Ph.D., D.S. More Nervous Onomasticae
XI 1 Lederer, Richard A Quiz About Sexist Language
XI 1 Turner, G.W. Antipodean Newsletter (Can I have a baby?)
XI 1 Galef, David From Za-za to San-san: The Climate of Japanese Onomatopoeia
XI 1 Howard, Philip ENGLISH ENGLISH
XI 2 Dugan, Lawrence Rose Moles
XI 2 Lederer, Richard Lost Metaphors of Land and Sea
XI 2 Baron, Dennis E. Is It [mIS] or [mIZ]?
XI 2 Denny, Alma DANGER! Letter Loose!
XI 2 Saltzman, Shelley Comparatively Speaking
XI 2 Sagoff, Maurice A Special Gift of Words
XI 2 Brock, Clifton In Honor of the Occasion
XI 2 Fowkes, Robert A. Primults or Protohysts
XI 2 Phillips, Louis From A to Zygoste for Yexing Readers
XI 3 Lazerson, Barbara Hunt Word Play the Media Way
XI 3 Hirschberg, M.D., Stephen E. Diagnosis: Chronic Progressive Abstrusity
XI 3 Howard, Virginia The Pearl of Hex
XI 3 Craig, Mary Stewart Cinq Centmille Diables! W'at Dat Is? Dat's Cajun, I Ga-ron-tee!
XI 3 Goss, Robert N. The Case of Gender
XI 3 Auswaks, Alex What Mrs. Garnett Never Told Us
XI 3 Riley, Philip Lexicography in the Scottish Highlands and Islands Cannibalism, Caves, and Amulets
XI 3 Cole, William Concealed Iranians
XI 3 Godinez, S. B. The Viking Linguistic Legacy
XI 4 Prichard, Virginia M. All Present--and Unaccounted for
XI 4 Minugh, David Crank This Sucker Up!
XI 4 Ferguson, John Of Spooner, Spoonerisms and Other Matters
XI 4 Turner, G.W. Antipodean English (Our Birthstain)
XI 4 Gorman, Michael The Trivial Pursuit of Grammar
XI 4 Hayes, Timothy D. Good Grief, Maude! It's an Oxymoron!
XI 4 Fowkes, Robert A. Double Trouble
XI 4 Feinsilver, Lillian Mermin Try It Again, Please
XI 4 Lederer, Richard The Violent English Language
XI 4 Miles, David L. Caveat Viator
XI 4 Ward, Norman Reflections on Indian Words, Among Others
XII 1 Lederer, Richard Brand New Eponyms
XII 1 Morgan, Arthur J. In the Name of the Pope
XII 1 Suderman, Elmer Eccentricity in English Lexicography
XII 1 Holland, Anna and Taffy A Play on Words
XII 1 Young, Elisabeth Larsh In Praise of Irregularity
XII 1 Nilsen, Don L. F. Who is Rula Lenska? Some Thoughts on Reference
XII 1 Howard, Philip English English (Frenglish)
XII 1 Galef, David Lost Tropes
XII 1 Trumbull, Charles P. Inscrutable Chinese Puzzle: Dialects or Languages?
XII 1 Graham, Julie Elizabeth Speaking English
XII 2 Bonner, Steve Nullspeak: A Question of Rotating Strawberry Madonnas
XII 2 Nahmoud, N. C. Landmarks in Arabic
XII 2 Howard, Philip English English
XII 2 Soibelman, David Noah Webster--An Appreciation
XII 2 Turner, George W. Antipodean English (Of Camels and Tamarillos)
XII 2 Schuchat, Theodor Spherical Containment Device
XII 2 Lederer, Richard Words That Don't Look Right
XII 2 Bland, D.S. Humpty Dumpty and the Sluggish Slut (or, Subjective Onomatopoeia)
XIII 1 Courtney, Rosemary Mapping the Words or How I Justified My Sneck
XIII 1 Kahn, John Ellison Polysemania, Semantic Taint, and Related Conditions
XIII 1 Lazerson, Barbara Hunt Patterned Words and Phrases
XIII 1 Queenan, Joe When Everything Was Everything
XIII 1 Hirschberg, Stephen Playing Words with Games
XIII 1 Drury, Donald The Lofty and/or Assumptive We
XIII 1 Lederer, Richard Mark Twain and the English Language
XIII 1 Howard, Philip English English (Take Care)
XIII 1 Bauerle, Richard F. The Strange and Quarky Language of Physics
XIII 2 Lederer, Richard The True Meaning of Christmas
XIII 2 Hochberg, Burt Our Playful Vocabulary
XIII 2 Axton, Paul V. The Nihongo Religion
XIII 2 Duchon, Paul Future Precedents and Nontoxic Poisons
XIII 2 Kahn, John E. The Rhetoric of Real Estate
XIII 2 Turner, George L. Antipodean English (In Praise of Creative Error)
XIII 2 Felty, James C. Mine Eye May Be Deceiv'd
XIII 2 Nahmound, N.C. Hawaij in the Washing Machine
XIII 3 Plotnik, Arthur Science Words for Humanists
XIII 3 Rasmussen, Robert R. What Do You Call a Person from...?
XIII 3 Behr, Nehemiah H. Naming-Day in Eden
XIII 3 Brooke, Maxey Iron Language
XIII 3 Hirschberg, Stephen E. Turkeys, Bombs, and Other Theatrical Souvenirs
XIII 4 Veit, Richard Folk Etymology on Campus
XIII 4 Bonner, Steve The Deep Structure of Breakfast Cereals
XIII 4 Abbey, Sydney I, Madam? I'm Adam (and other inconsequential verbal trivia)
XIII 4 Humphreys, Edgar Into Noah's Ark
XIII 4 Lederer, Richard The World According to Student Bloopers
XIII 4 Baron, Dennis Public Cutespeak
XIII 4 Howard, Philip English English (Scab)
XIV 1 Demy, Nicholas G. Go to the Dictionary, Thou Sluggard
XIV 1 Cahill, Brian Way To Go, Aubie!
XIV 1 Soyka, Dan E. Whither Thou, Thee, Thy and Thine
XIV 1 Cohen, Harry Microlinguistics
XIV 1 Howard, Virginia In Praise of St. Jerome
XIV 1 Turner, George W. Antipodean English (Going Decimal)
XIV 1 Lederer, Richard I before E except...
XIV 2 Heumann, Karl F.; Wellisch, Hans H. Sinister Dexterity
XIV 2 Galef, David The Morox
XIV 2 Busic, Julienne Eden Time and Life
XIV 2 Turner, George W. Antipodean English (Divided by a Common Tongue)
XIV 2 Lederer, Richard American Slurvian
XIV 3 Armstrong, Jr., Walter P. Sherlock Holmes Adds A Word
XIV 3 Gold, David L. The Poem Recently Attributed to Shakespeare and the Misuse of Dictionaries
XIV 3 Conniff, Richard Poison Penmanship
XIV 3 Garfield, Johanna Ici On Parle Anglais?
XIV 3 Gramm, Gene The Serendipity of Cotyledon
XIV 3 Lederer, Richard Playing the Numbers Game
XIV 3 Henn, Henry 'Nam, Gook, Gung-ho: Nonsense
XIV 3 Turner, George W. Antipodean English (Give a Dog a Bad Name ...)
XIV 4 Van Gelder, Paula Poetic Licenses
XIV 4 Heehs, Peter Indian Words in English: Resident Aliens and Naturalized Citizens
XIV 4 Lederer, Richard A Man of Fire-new Words
XIV 4 Hirschberg, Stephen E. Agatha Christie's Works Are Not Legal Fictions
XIV 4 de Forest, John Noticing Nouns
XIV 4 Bland, D.S. Shakespeare's Legal Language
XIV 4 Kingscott, Geoffrey Language As a Source of Conflict
XIV 4 Turner, George W. Antipodean Newsletter (The Coming of the Strangers)
XV 1 Lederer, Richard Gunning for the English Language
XV 1 Davidson, J.A. The Joy of Scottish English: Chambers 20th Century Dictionary
XV 1 Hynes, Joseph Do Mistake—Learn Better
XV 1 Delaney, Chester Onomatoplazia
XV 1 Cannon, Garland Word Droppings
XV 2 Power, Helen W. Women on Language; Women in Language
XV 2 Ilson, Robert How Big Is Your Dictionary?
XV 2 McArthur, Tom The Fifth Estate
XV 2 Brooke, Maxey Texican
XV 2 Sharp, Don Hidden Compounds
XV 2 Phillips, Louis Maxwell Bodenheim's Harlem Slang
XV 2 Davidson, J.A. Of Course, Cuthbert
XV 3 Sebastian, Robert M. Red Pants
XV 3 Turner, George W. Antipodean Newsletter (Water, Water, Nowhere)
XV 3 Greenwood, Douglas Favorite Grammatical Game: Puzzling Pronouns
XV 3 Lederer, Richard The Joys and Oys of Yiddish
XV 4 Hirschberg, Stephen E. Zap the BEMs! Onward, Space Cadets!
XV 4 Cohen, Harry The Cryptic Toolbox
XV 4 Oppenheim, Peter K. Money of the Realm
XV 4 Lederer, Richard English Is A Crazy Language
XV 4 Dougherty, William H. Foreign Correspondents
XV 4 Lazerson, Barbara Hunt Lite/Light
XV 4 Greenwood, Douglas Favorite Grammatical Games: Legerdemain in Two Senses and False Scents
XV 4 Pal, Pratapaditya Brahman or brahman?
XV 4 Kemp, Lysander Mrs. Malaprop in Mexico
XV 4 Pomfrit, D.A. Verbal Analogies I--Miscellaneous
XVI 1 Baron, Dennis Word Law
XVI 1 Lederer, Richard The Strange Case of Doctor Rotcod
XVI 1 Greenwood, Douglas Another Grammatical Game: The Foregone Conclusion
XVI 1 Cannon, Garland Word Droppings
XVI 1 Rasmussen, Robert R. Knowing the Fervor with Which You Speak...
XVI 1 Nilsen, Alleen Don Nilsen, Jean Multer, Fascinating Toponymics--Geographical Names and the Stories They Tell
XVI 1 Smith, Roger The Bound and Gagged Morpheme
XVI 2 Hollander, Grace The 23rd Psalm and Me, or Has the Nightingale Become a Crow?
XVI 2 Davidson, J. A. Richard Albert Wilson: The Canadian Scholar on Whom Bernard Shaw Tried to Grind His Alphabet Axe
XVI 2 Galef, David Backwords and Newances
XVI 2 Bricklin, Jonathan Writing the Hard Way
XVI 2 Pomfrit, D.A. Verbal Analogies II--Miscellaneous
XVI 2 Richard, Michel P. A Taxonomy of Epigrams
XVI 3 Dougherty, William H. The Past As Prologue
XVI 3 Elsberry, Richard B. A Few Words (235 To Be Exact) About the 1980s
XVI 3 Hirschberg, Stephen E. Lest We Forget
XVI 3 Lederer, Richard Stuff and Nonsense
XVI 3 Riedel, Ruth The Communication Ravine
XVI 3 Room, Adrian Don't Get Your Titles In A Twist!
XVI 3 Christian, Rebecca Blessed Be The Words That Bind
XVI 3 Alvey, John Français ou plutôt à la française
XVI 3 Casey, Richard C. Ipsissimum Verbum
XVI 3 Queenan, Joe What Gall
XVI 3 Galef, David The Long and the Short of It
XVI 3 Felts, John H. Bumps, Grinds and Other Lewd (1389) Gestures
XVI 4 Mason, Stanley The Germanization of American English
XVI 4 Lederer, Richard The Glamour of Grammar
XVI 4 Cohen, Harry Jingo Lingo
XVI 4 Henry, Elaine T. Nifty Nomenclature
XVI 4 Whitehead, Nicholas Transatlanguage
XVI 4 Tittensor, John New Blood in the Namestream
XVII 1 Peterson, Max C. The Language of the Law
XVII 1 Sypnowich, Peter Needless to Say
XVII 1 Pomfrit, D.A. Verbal Analogies V--Divination
XVII 2 Pascal, Paul What's in a Roman Name?
XVII 2 Bach, Zellig The Scandalous Yiddish Guide of the Census Bureau
XVII 2 Sharp, Don To Abbrev. or Not to Abbreviate
XVII 2 Gaitonde, Vishwas R. The Sounds of Inglish
XVII 2 Buller, Jon The Naming of Poisons
XVII 2 Purves, Alan C. Appositional Elegance A Brief Exposition
XVII 2 MacKay, Donald A. The Gaelic View of Heather
XVII 3 Bonner, Steve Redundancy in Natural Languages
XVII 3 Mason, Stanley Little Waterloos on Europe's Language Frontiers
XVII 3 Dougherty, William H. French Leave
XVII 3 Vercambre, Michel Instant Welsh
XVII 4 Dougherty, William H. Ethnic Slurs and the Avoidance Thereof
XVII 4 Brown, Craig You Say Tomato...
XVII 4 McIntosh, K. H. One for the Road
XVII 4 Robinson, David Bad Language and Big Bucks
XVIII 1 Devereux, Robert Punch on the Bungalow Veranda
XVIII 1 Yoo, Dal The World of Abbreviations and Acronyms
XVIII 1 Heinz, John F. fix
XVIII 2 Sharp, Don Speaking of the Unmentionables
XVIII 2 Swift, Bob Wrenches in the Gorse and Bracken
XVIII 2 Galef, David Cross-talk
XVIII 2 Schofield, David Stuart Texas Prison Slang
XVIII 2 Abate, Frank R. Unraveling the American Place-Name Cover
XVIII 2 Ober, William B. Writing Maketh an Exact Man
XVIII 2 Cassidy, John R. There Just Isn't a Word for It
XVIII 2 Bauerle, R.F. The Power of Doubled Words
XVIII 3 Sebastian, Robert M. Abusing the King's English
XVIII 3 Dougherty, William H. Names of Santa Fe
XVIII 3 King, Helen To the Foot of the Letter, I'm Listening to a Turkish Sermon!
XVIII 3 Stark, Jack A Wisconsin Supreme Court Dictionary
XVIII 3 Sharp, Don A Menagerie of Words
XVIII 3 Lehrer, Adrienne Wine Vocabulary and Wine Description
XVIII 3 Lederer, Jr., Richard M. Colonial American English—Supplement
XVIII 4 Schindler, Marc A. Politically Correct Nomenclature or, How to Win at Trivial Pursuit and Lose Friends
XVIII 4 Bach, Zellig The Gremlins of E.T.
XVIII 4 Ford, Robert Archibald Learn to Spike Lunars
XVIII 4 Dougherty, William H. Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch ...
XIX 1 Brashear, William Hocus Pocus
XIX 1 Lowrey, Burling Investigating the Racqueteers
XIX 1 Swift, Bob Join Me For a Spell
XIX 1 Carver, Craig M. Etymology as Educated Guess
XIX 1 Simpson, David L. Of "Coat-wearers" and "Kekiongas": Native American Culture and "Indian" Nicknames
XIX 2 Brunetta, Leslie Frailty, Thy Name Is Bevilacqua!
XIX 2 Room, Adrian Easy Does It?
XIX 2 Kahn, John Lexicographic Quirks and Whimsy
XIX 2 Schofield, David Stuart More Texas Prison Slang
XIX 2 Tius, Mary M. The Names of Some North American Indian Tribes
XIX 3 Galef, David What a Cliché!
XIX 3 Quirk, Sir Randolph Rhyme and Punishment
XIX 3 Zhu, Waiju English Loanwords in Chinese
XIX 3 Cowie, Anthony Reaching for the Ready-Made
XIX 3 Fowkes, Robert A. Eyebrows and Lowbrows
XIX 3 McArthur, Tom The Coming Hybrids
XIX 3 Allsopp, Jeannette Humor Caribbean Style
XIX 3 Cassidy, Frederic G. Malcolm
XIX 3 Bailey, Richard W. Word Watchers: Fitzedward Hall
XIX 3 Ramson, W.S. Australia and the Environment: the First Fifty Years
XIX 3 Ilson, Robert People of the Books: Biographical Entries in Dictionaries
XIX 3 Aman, Reinhold Verbal Aggression in The Wizard of Oz
XIX 3 Bailey, Bel Mottoes from Zetland
XIX 3 Berlyne, Alex Front Back-axle
XIX 3 Room, Adrian "Tide-end town, which is Teddington" (or is it?)
XIX 3 Dougherty, William H. In the Name of Revolution
XIX 3 Johnson, Michael Tomorrow's Business Buzzwords
XIX 3 Rickerby, David Bird Talk
XIX 3 Dodge, Douglas S. Why All Living Things Have Latin Names
XIX 4 Berlyne, Alex Dickey Ticker
XIX 4 Bailey, Bel Sussex Speak
XIX 4 Major, Alan The Language of Past Money
XIX 4 Galef, David How to Gain Proverbial Wisdom, or It Takes One to Know One
XIX 4 Balado-Lopez, Daniel Thunderboxes and Chuggies
XIX 4 Wagner, Geoffrey Windy English
XIX 4 Cochrane, Robertson 'Ard Lines
XX 1 Bailey, Bel Roundabout East Anglia
XX 1 Tius, Mary M. Vestiges
XX 1 Ingleson, Sharon Future Difficulties
XX 1 Herman, Louis Jay What's in an Article?
XX 1 Balado-Lopez, Daniel Developing Dictionaries
XX 1 Zhu, Weiju Derogatory Epithets for Foreigners in Chinese
XX 1 Pritchard, Hubert Whatever Happened to Frank Beriberi?
XX 1 Eskenazi, Gerald Of Eating Rubber and Sno-cones
XX 2 Davidson, J.A. Some Fundamentals of Fundamentalism
XX 2 Bailey, Richard W. Literally,...
XX 2 Galef, David The Pause That Refreshes
XX 2 Cochrane, Robertson Niggles in a Haystack
XX 2 Tius, Mary M. Hand-me-downs
XX 2 Major, Alan What's "In"; a Kentish Saying?
XX 3 Kahn, John Cynical Definitions and Funny Phrasebooks
XX 3 Tritten, Larry Unmasking the Metaphor
XX 3 Ross, Nigel J. Beyond Blue Chips, Bulls and Bears
XX 3 Cochrane, Robertson My Tainted Ain't
XX 3 Ecott, Martyn The Franglais Blues
XX 3 Ramson, W.S. Antipodean English
XX 4 Egan, Gary Wordplay
XX 4 Tius, Mary M. Barbarians: Babbling, Bearded, Bizarre
XX 4 Major, Alan Speaking with a Horse Voice
XX 4 Cochrane, Robert Speaking of the Ineffable
XX 4 Ramson, W.S. Westward Ho
XX 4 Nelson, Gerald War and the OED
XX 4 Brearley, Sam Schadenfreude
XX 4 Whitehead, Allison Titillating Titles
XXI 1 Bennett, Martin The Lamps of Speech
XXI 1 Tius, Mary M. Stress
XXI 1 Bailey, Bel Slang from Greyfriars
XXI 1 Blackford, Paul Some English Loanwords in Thai
XXI 1 Schindler, Marc A. "Schindler's List" of Ashkenaz's Names
XXI 1 Ramson, W.S. Tassie Terms
XXI 1 Cochrane, Robertson Verbum Sap The Media Is the Message
XXI 2 Cushing, Steven Plane Speaking
XXI 2 Netsky, Martin G. What Is Dementia?
XXI 2 Stages, Leo The True Meaning of Christmas
XXI 2 Indictor, Nyr Reading Non-Sequentially: The Peculiar Kanbun System
XXI 2 Dougherty, William H. A Balance of Trade
XXI 2 Galef, David Sound and Sense
XXI 2 Abootty, O. How Manieth?
XXI 2 Tius, Mary M. Borrowings
XXI 2 Fisk, Alan Living with Fossilized Ears
XXI 2 Cochrane, Robertson To Verb or Not to Verb
XXI 3 Ross, Nigel J. Wot's de rite spellin', den?
XXI 3 Saporta, Sol Expressions for Sexual Harassment: a Semantic Hole
XXI 3 Champlin, Richard L. Language at Bay
XXI 3 Indictor, Nyr On Beyond Zebra, or, the No-Longer-Roman Alphabet
XXI 3 Kelly, Raymond M. Mountain Talk
XXI 3 Ramson, Bill Of Surf and Such
XXI 3 Cochrane, Robertson Par for the Coarse
XXI 3 Constantine, P. Chin-banging: Tough English Words in Japanese Teen Slang
XXI 4 Stough, Charles Insulting Nicknames Give Journalists Something to Be Proud of
XXI 4 Major, Alan Endearment Elucidation, or Love By Any Other Name
XXI 4 Dougherty, William H. Crossing
XXI 4 Bencze, Elizabeth English Arrivals in Hungary
XXI 4 Blackford, Paul Bespeaking a Muse or What?
XXI 4 Lowrey, Burling Classic Wit
XXI 4 Dobson, Roger No Nicknames in the Valleys
XXI 4 Ramson, W.S. Probably, possibly, perhaps
XXI 4 Cochrane, Robertson Me and Empathy
XXII 1 Bowmer, Rosemary Proper Words in Proper Places
XXII 1 Mohapatra, Ashok K. Politicking with Words: On Ideology and Dictionary Meaning
XXII 1 Emerson, Ralph H. Horse Words in a Motor Age
XXII 1 Egan, Gary Chunnel Vision
XXII 1 Howard, Hilary M. No Boys Named Sue, But...
XXII 1 Betts, Jerome All in the Family
XXII 1 Champlin, Richard L. On Good Terms
XXII 1 Millar, R. You can have your cake and eat it
XXII 1 Constantine, Peter English on the Serbian Front
XXII 1 Millar, R. Et tu, Brutus, old chap!
XXII 1 Davidson, J. A. The joy of jabberwocking
XXII 2 MacIntosh, Donald French Lessons in Lallans
XXII 2 Wood, Carl An Aye for an Aye
XXII 2 Kahn, John Ellison Falls the Shadow
XXII 2 Adams, Robert Towards a New Literature
XXII 2 Cochrane, Robertson Ha...ha...have one on me!
XXII 2 Ramson, Bill Famous Australian Etymologies
XXII 2 Major, Alan A Catalogue of Cats
XXII 3 Isaacson, David Power Users Dump Baudy Language: The Ambivalent Nature of Computer Slang
XXII 3 Blackford, Paul Japanese Pop Group Nomenclature
XXII 3 Nicholls, Simon Casanova's English
XXII 3 Felts, John H. Safire's Syndrome
XXII 3 MacIntosh, Donald The Way That They Tell 'em
XXII 3 Ramson, Bill More Famous Australian Etymologies
XXII 3 Emerson, Ralph H. Some Secrets of English Nicknames
XXII 3 Temianka, Daniel Badges Redux
XXII 3 Wertheim, Naftali English As She Is Minced
XXII 3 Dougherty, William H. Feminine Goldfish and Other Hybrids
XXII 3 Musgrave, John Up or Down to You
XXII 3 Ronnick, Michele Valerie A Fourth Use of the Verb Rodomontade in the Eighteenth Century
XXII 4 MacIntosh, Donald Jam Pass Die
XXII 4 Briggs, Doug The Day They Took the Peck out of Pecksniffian
XXII 4 Ross, Nigel J. A Proper Look at Verbs
XXII 4 Schindler, Marc A. Elementary, My Dear Mendeleev
XXII 4 Seabrook, Mike All Gone Pear-Shaped: Opportunities for Misunderstanding the Police
XXII 4 Mansbridge, Ronald The Intrusive s
XXII 4 Thorpe, John E. The Game of the Name
XXII 4 Galef, David F U Cn Rd Ths ...
XXII 4 Ramson, Bill The ABC of Broadcasting Australian
XXIII 1 Schindler, Marc A. (Dia)critic's Corner
XXIII 1 Richler, Howard Galling Gallicisms of Quebec English
XXIII 1 Temianka, Daniel The King of Wordsmiths
XXIII 1 Davidson, J. A. The Problem of Names
XXIII 1 Crilly, Josephine Turning To Nod Goodbye
XXIII 1 Ramson, Bill Dharuk Words In English
XXIII 1 Woolner, Rosalind It Figures
XXIII 2 Guyol, Hazel Sample A Yankee Dime and Other Reginal Expressions
XXIII 2 Mathew, David Anti-Language
XXIII 2 Betts, Jerome The Grockles of Goodrington
XXIII 2 Schindler, Marc A. "Latter-day" English
XXIII 2 Cushing, Ph.D., Steven The Meaning of Murder
XXIII 2 Marco, Margaret The Staff of Life
XXIII 2 Brashear, William Fo Er Si Guo Er and The Cross-Eyed Bear (or: Of Oronyms and Other Literary Trompes l'Oeil/Oreille)
XXIII 3 Room, Adrian By Their Notes Ye Shall Know Them: A Look at Onomatopoeic Ornithonymy
XXIII 3 Tius, Mary M. Muddled Meaning
XXIII 3 Bailey, Bel Salty Sayings from Cornwall
XXIII 3 Ramson, Bill Settlement by Sea
XXIII 3 Ramson, Bill The Case of Nyungar
XXIII 3 Tius, Mary M. Deranged Diction
XXIII 4 Humez, Nick Periodic Table Manners
XXIII 4 Hall, Joan Houston DARE-More Than Halfway There
XXIII 4 Rubrecht, August Exploring the Lexicon with Natives of North America
XXIII 4 Galef, David Ups and Downs
XXIII 4 Newman, Jon O. Word Words
XXIII 4 Saporta, Sol On the So-called "Debate" over Black English
XXIII 4 Sheidlower, Jesse Revising The F-Word
XXIII 4 Tius, Mary M. Lost and Foundering
XXIV 1 Rawson, Hugh Bowderlism in the Barnyard
XXIV 1 Sampson, Paul J. Airspeak
XXIV 1 Pratt, Daniel L. A Brief History of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (OSPD)
XXIV 1 Galef, David How To Speak Like A Corporation
XXIV 1 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (On the Art of Translation, and Vice Versa)
XXIV 1 Hall, Tony The Things That People Say
XXIV 1 Dougherty, William H. Bromides
XXIV 1 Bernard, Thomas L. Onomastica: Ultimate Consonant Duplication
XXIV 1 Felts, John H. More Servings From the Periodic Table
XXIV 1 Blau, Dr. Karl Family Saga
XXIV 1 Holmes-Moss, Ida The Language of Plants and Flowers
XXIV 1 Howarth, Pamela A Little Latin is a Dangerous Thing
XXIV 1 MacIntosh, Donald The Last Pibroch
XXIV 1 Rubrecht, August Why Have We Got Have Got?
XXIV 1 Ronnick, Michele Valerie The First Use of the Latinate Adjective Fluxionary in the Twentieth Century
XXIV 2 Considine, John Reading the Traces of James Murray in the Oxford English Dictionary
XXIV 2 Randall, Jessy; Woloson, Wendy Assing Around
XXIV 2 Murphy, M. Lynne Racing for Definitions in South Africa
XXIV 2 Fischer, Henry What¹s the French for "Fiddle de dee"? (poem)
XXIV 2 Coward, Mat Bona Palare: The Language of Round the Horne
XXIV 2 Bready, Richard Graphic Account (poem)
XXIV 2 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (On Blue Moons, and Others)
XXIV 2 Cushing, Stephen All About All
XXIV 2 Collins, Valerie Byte Bonding, Bit-bangers, and BLOBS
XXIV 2 Slap, Joseph K. Fun Things to Say in Spanish, French, & English
XXIV 2 Richler, Howard Hearing is in the Ear of the Listener
XXIV 3 Buchanan, M.A. Identity and Language in the SM Scene
XXIV 3 Coward, Mat Horrible Dictu (column)
XXIV 3 Fischer, Henry A Backhanded Pardon (poem)
XXIV 3 Wiener, Gary I May Already Be a Wiener
XXIV 3 Elkins, Susan A Bestiary of Adjectives
XXIV 3 Nuttall, Martin It¹s All Double Janglish to Me!
XXIV 3 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (Juney ŒToons)
XXIV 3 Saporta, Sol Widows, Orphans, and ? Semantic Holes
XXIV 3 Kern, John Konrad Words for Their Own Sake
XXIV 3 Holan, Frank Bats as Symbols
XXIV 3 Egan, Gary from A Dictionary of Interesting Collisions
XXIV 3 McKean, Erin Intolerable Intolerance, Redux
XXIV 4 McKinzey, Rima Between the Parentheses: A Pron Chick reports from the Front Lines
XXIV 4 Galef, David Primer (poem)
XXIV 4 Coward, Mat Horribile Dictu (column)
XXIV 4 Morris, John Avoiding Offense
XXIV 4 Saporta, Sol On the Use of Niggardly
XXIV 4 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (Money Talks)
XXIV 4 Behling, Jim The Foreignym
XXIV 4 Haubrich, William S. Menckenisms
XXV 1 Cates, David C. Where Did He Put the Pen of My Aunt? Navajo Revealed
XXV 1 May, Pete British Football Chants
XXV 1 Murphy, M. Lynne Excerpts from the Baylor College Linguistics Scavenger Hunt
XXV 1 Ronnick, Michele Valerie From Josephus¹s Jewish War to the American Civil War: Charles Francis Adams, Jr.¹s "Dead Sea Apple"
XXV 1 Elkin, Susan To What End Gender Endings?
XXV 1 Coward, Mat Horribile Dictu (column)
XXV 1 Kleinedler, Steve Have Your Salt and Eat It, Too
XXV 1 Baldwin, Barry As the Word Turns (column)
XXV 1 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (Chances Are)
XXV 1 Randall, Jessy A Visit from Aunt Rose: Euphemisms (and Pejoratives) for Menstruation
XXV 2 Rosenthal, Gloria Broadway Musicals‹Terms and Traditions
XXV 2 Sutherland, Fraser The Language of Porn Sites
XXV 2 Cushing, Steven Evolution: Just a Theory?
XXV 2 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (It¹s About Time)
XXV 2 Considine, John Antedatings and Supplementary Material for OED from a Correspondent of Browne Willis (1712)
XXV 2 Dougherty, William H. Fillers
XXV 2 Coward, Mat Horribile Dictu (column)
XXV 2 Baldwin, Barry Classical Swearing: A Vade-Mecum
XXV 2 Orza, Luisa Word Tax
XXV 2 Hanley, Brian J. An Amendment to the OED¹s Definition of "Catchpenny"
XXV 2 Room, Adrian Bottom, Thou Art Translated
XXV 2 Britten, Sid Have You Read Marx?
XXV 3 Emerson, Ralph H. The Most Lively Consonants in the World
XXV 3 Gordon, D., and Spear, R.L. Baby-san¹s Lingo
XXV 3 Coward, Mat Horribile Dictu (column)
XXV 3 Baker, Aidan Five Legislations (poem)
XXV 3 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (Getting Out the Vote)
XXV 3 Baldwin, Barry As the Word Turns (Some High and Low Cs)
XXV 3 Howard, Hilary Berthing the Verbiage
XXV 3 Richler, Howard The OED Online
XXV 3 Betts, Jerome Name of a Dog
XXV 4 Finz, Steven R. The New Profanity
XXV 4 Hall, Tony The Mouths of Yarmouth
XXV 4 Felts, Susannah Love Letters (Some Thoughts on the Dictionary)
XXV 4 Coward, Mat Horribile Dictu (column)
XXV 4 Randall, Jessy Blah, Blah, Blah, Etcetera
XXV 4 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (Funny Animals)
XXV 4 Lieberman, E. James Esperanto: Language for Everyone
XXV 4 Esterhill, Frank Interlingua--RIP
XXV 4 Heacock, Paul; Cassidy, Carol-June Artistic Endeavors
XXVI 1 Urdang, Laurence Today¹s Lesson
XXVI 1 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (Silly Songs)
XXVI 1 Considine, John Twelve Notes on the Canadian Oxford Dictionary
XXVI 1 Baldwin, Barry As the Word Turns (Where Do They Come From?)
XXVI 1 Elkin, Susan English Place Names
XXVI 1 Shapiro, Fred George Orwell, Meet Regis
XXVI 1 Galef, David Plain Talk, or the Case of the Vanishing Vocabulary
XXVI 1 Baker, Aidan The Use of Quotes (poem)
XXVI 1 Blackford, Paul Bangkok Unabridged
XXVI 1 Coward, Mat Horribile Dictu (column)
XXVI 1 Felts, John H. Lapsed Language of Appalachia
XXVI 1 Fischer, Henry George Ah! Ah! Elle est bien bonne! (poem)
XXVI 2 Garvey, Graeme Proverbs Up-To-Date
XXVI 2 Mills, Dennis An Alphabetaphile¹s Outrage Wherein Caedmon¹s ancestors blunder and we pay the price
XXVI 2 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (-ists, -ites, and Other Ends)
XXVI 2 Coward, Mat Horribile Dictu (column)
XXVI 2 Shapiro, Fred R. The Humble Origins of the Chad
XXVI 2 Betts, Jerome Hell Is All Around
XXVI 2 Baldwin, Barry As the Word Turns (X Files)
XXVI 2 Fischer, Henry George Hazlitt On Wit (poem)
XXVI 2 Emerson, Ralph H. Denaturized Profanity in English
XXVI 2 Elkin, Susan Out of the Mouths of Š Twins
XXVI 3 Liberman, Anatoly Skip to the Loo: Loo in Its (Indo-) European Context
XXVI 3 Clankie, Shawn M. Why Bud Weiser Can Sell Cars (But Not Beer)
XXVI 3 Litt, Marilyn Knapp Confessions of a Pert Aleck
XXVI 3 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (Eponymous Ailments)
XXVI 3 Coward, Mat Horribile Dictu
XXVI 3 Baldwin, Barry As the Word Turns (Catching Some Zees)
XXVI 3 Shapiro, Juliette Thesaurusising: A Little-Known Art
XXVI 3 Galef, David Spelt as It Sounds
XXVI 3 Warburton, Mike Pub Names in the 21st Century
XXVI 3 Bernard, Thomas L. Noncing the Indefinite Article, or, Do You Have a Nuncle?
XXVI 3 Ronnick, Michele Valerie A Note on the Origin of Tall Poppy and Tall Poppy Syndrome
XXVI 3 Dougherty, William H. Prepositional Epiphany
XXVI 4 Stevens, Al Lip Control
XXVI 4 Whitehead, Allison (Mis)interpretation?
XXVI 4 Lederer, Richard How Wise Is Proverbial Wisdom?
XXVI 4 Cassidy, Carol-June and Paul Heacock Book Words
XXVI 4 Hoptman, Ari A Possible Origin of Flash Flood
XXVI 4 Shapiro, Fred R. HarpWeek: Full-Text Searching of History
XXVI 4 Veihdeffer, Jeff Bogus E-Mail Subject Lines
XXVI 4 Coward, Mat Horribile Dictu (column)
XXVI 4 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (Baddabing, Baddabang)
XXVI 4 Baldwin, Barry As the Word Turns (Some Ado About Nothings)
XXVI 4 Fischer, Henry George First Person Singular (poem)
XXVI 4 Urdang, Laurence Review of Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography
XXVI 4 Bailey, Richard W. Review of The Warden of English
XXVI 4 McKean, Erin Review of How Language Comes to Children
XXVII 1 Hargraves, Orin Rendering the Language of Daad
XXVII 1 Eskenazi, Gerald Unexpected Surprises
XXVII 1 Galef, David A Column on Columns
XXVII 1 Wood, D. Russ The Slang of the Day
XXVII 1 Powell, Steve Fancy a Viking, Sooty?
XXVII 1 McKean, Erin L33t-sp34k
XXVII 1 Bennet, Martin Wilmot Palaver Sauce
XXVII 1 Coward, Mat Horribile Dictu (column)
XXVII 1 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (Certain Somebodies)
XXVII 1 Sutherland, Fraser Review of Why We Curse
XXVII 1 Kleinedler, Steve Review of Vanishing Voices
XXVII 1 Deimling, Kate Review of Language Play
XXVII 1 McKean, Erin Review of The Way We Talk Now
XXVII 2 Schliefer, Rob A Nocturnal View of the Lunar Landscape
XXVII 2 Randall, Jessy Anything But Pregnant
XXVII 2 Emerson, Ralph B is for Body
XXVII 2 Beam, Matthew Sympathy and Empathy
XXVII 2 Galef, David The Trouble With Janus Words
XXVII 2 Elkin, Susan Epithets: the Great, the Good, the Golden-tongued and the Terrible
XXVII 2 Gani, Martin Colourful Language
XXVII 2 Betts, Jerome Dog-Lime Days
XXVII 2 Room, Adrian Animal Lamina
XXVII 2 Coward, Mat Horribile Dictu (column)
XXVII 2 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (Weird Tools, Improbable Jobs)
XXVII 2 Baldwin, Barry As the Word Turns: Some Goode Olde Englishe Dirte (column)
XXVII 2 Deimling, Brian Review of Cattus Petasatus, by Jennifer and Terrence Tunberg
XXVII 2 McKean, Erin Review of The Dictionary of Wordplay, by Dave Morice
XXVII 3 Costikyan, Greg Talk Like a Gamer
XXVII 3 Shapiro, Juliette A Tuesday Afternoon With Hunter Diack
XXVII 3 Lowrey, Burling Notes on Meiosis
XXVII 3 Lederer, Richard Stamp Out Fadspeak
XXVII 3 Bentley, Tom Checking Your References
XXVII 3 Gani, Martin English in Italy
XXVII 3 Kedzierski, Roberta Easy As ABC?
XXVII 3 Richler, Howard Words: The Stealth Weapon of War
XXVII 3 Baldwin, Barry As the Word Turns: Kettel Kall (column)
XXVII 3 Coward, Mat Horribile Dictu (column)
XXVII 3 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (Uncle Fud)
XXVII 4 Whelan, Richard American Spelling Reform
XXVII 4 Randall, Jessy The Sneeze: More Than Just Ah-choo and Bless You
XXVII 4 Shapiro, Fred R. The Politically Correct U.S. Supreme Court and the Motherfucking Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
XXVII 4 Whitehead, Allison Jumpers and Rounders and Tops, Oh My
XXVII 4 Betts, Jerome To Curf and Thrash, and Vex and Dash
XXVII 4 Ross, Nigel J. A Headful of Words
XXVII 4 Ladds, Tony An Appeal to Writers Everywhere
XXVII 4 Coward, Mat Horribile Dictu (column)
XXVII 4 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (Quaint Crimes, Archaic Punishments)
XXVII 4 McKean, Erin Review of Predicting New Words, by Allan Metcalf
XXVIII 1 Young, William Translating the Language of Birds
XXVIII 1 Miller, Kathleen E. War Is Hell, Naming Them Ain't Too Easy Either
XXVIII 1 Falcon, Melanie Everything You Always Wanted To Know about Pig Latin But Were Afraid To Ask
XXVIII 1 Gani, Martin Say It With Words
XXVIII 1 Stone, Devorah Getting Hitched or Shacking Up and Other Domestic Arrangements
XXVIII 1 Hall, Keith J. What's So T about a T-Shirt?
XXVIII 1 Hargraves, Orin Prewarned is Prearmed
XXVIII 1 Sheil, Pat I Before E?
XXVIII 1 Rubrecht, August The Verbal Ape
XXVIII 1 Coward, Mat Horribile Dictu (column)
XXVIII 1 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (Hellenic Damnation and Other Afterlives)
XXVIII 1 Pearsons, Enid Two New Kids on the Block (review)
XXVIII 1 McKean, Erin Miscellaneous Bibliographia (review)
XXVIII 2 McFedries, Paul Seinfeldisms
XXVIII 2 Warburton, Mike Product Names
XXVIII 2 Lederer, Richard The Case For Small Words
XXVIII 2 Elkin, Susan Going But Not Quite Gone
XXVIII 2 Youngblood,Mike Such a Fine Pot of Curry
XXVIII 2 Galef, David Diction Slips
XXVIII 2 Baldwin, Barry God-Damns
XXVIII 2 Shields, David Words Can't Begin to Describe What I'm Feeling
XXVIII 2 Murray, William No Trivial Matter
XXVIII 2 Coward, Mat Horribile Dictu (column)
XXVIII 2 Humez, Nick Classical Blather (Pants on Fire)
XXVIII 2 McKean, Erin Ex Cathedra
XXVIII 2 Fischer, Henry George Lame Words (poem)
XXVIII 2 Rustin, Dan Dear Editor (poem)

voanews
Special English
Wordmaster - A Weekly Analysis of American English

"VOA" steht für "Voice Of America".

(E?)(L?) http://www.voanews.com/english/about/index.cfm

The Voice of America, which first went on the air in 1942, is a multimedia international broadcasting service funded by the U.S. Government through the Broadcasting Board of Governors. VOA broadcasts approximately 1,500 hours of news, information, educational, and cultural programming every week to an estimated worldwide audience of 134 million people.

(E4)(L2) http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/about_special_english.cfm

Helping People Understand Their World
The Roots of Special English
On October 19, 1959, the Voice of America broadcast the first Special English program. It was an experiment. The goal was to communicate by radio in clear and simple English with people whose native language was not English. Special English programs quickly became some of the most popular on VOA. They still are. Special English continues to communicate with people who are not fluent in English. Over the years, its role has expanded. It helps people learn American English while they learn about American life and stay informed about world news and developments in science. It provides listeners with information they cannot find elsewhere.
...

(E?)(L?) http://media.voanews.com/documents/2009Edition_WordBook.pdf
VOA Special English Word Book

Der "Wordmaster" läßt einiges erhoffen, aber es handelt sich eher um eine Seite, die - mit interessanten Artikeln - an die englische Sprache heranführen soll.

(E6)(L2) http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/wordbook-a.cfm

Search Results 1-10 of 576 for: "Wordmaster"

11 January 2011 - 'App' an Apt Word for Tech-Crazy 2010, but How Do You Even Say 'Culturomics'? - Ben Zimmer of the American Dialect Society discusses its words of the year. For more archives, type Wordmaster in the search box
21 December 2010 - Finding Comfort in Euphemisms When Words Make Us Feel Uneasy - An interview with Ralph Keyes, author of the new book ''Euphemia"
16 December 2010 - Writing Laws So Lawyers Are Not the Only Ones Who Can Read Them - A program in New Orleans trains legislative drafters from around the world
08 December 2010 - Seriously: 'OK' Began as a Joke in a Newspaper in Boston in 1839 - Allan Metcalf has written a history of what he calls ''America's greatest word'' | WORDMASTER
24 November 2010 - 'Jack and the Beanstalk,' Told With Food-Related Slang - Celebrating Thanksgiving Day with David "Slangman" Burke
17 November 2010 - Lost for Words? Here Are Some Tips to Remember About Improving Memory - "We don't forget, we just haven't learned it in the first place," says communications trainer Wendi Eldh
11 November 2010 - Taking the Frustration Out of Phrasal Verbs - English teacher Lida Baker has advice for learning phrasal verbs in a context
03 November 2010 - Break In, Break Out, Break Up -- Give Us a Break! (OK, Not Exactly a Breakthrough Headline) - David ''Slangman'' Burke breaks down some of the many uses of ''break"
21 October 2010 - 'Don't Let Somebody Else's Words Dictate the Discussion All the Time' - Second of two parts with Kathleen Reardon, author of "Comebacks at Work"
13 October 2010 - Advice for What to Say If Someone Leaves You at a Loss for Words - First of two parts with "Comebacks at Work" author Kathleen Reardon
05 October 2010 - Think Age Makes No Difference for Twins? Just Listen to Them Talk - More with Deborah Tannen, author of "You Were Always Mom's Favorite!"
28 September 2010 - Listening for What Sisters Say About Each Other, What They Really Mean - Linguist Deborah Tannen discusses messages and metamessages; first of two parts
14 September 2010 - What Americans Mean When They Make an Appeal to 'Sensitivity' - Linguist Geoff Nunberg says it can be used as a way to avoid reasoned argument
09 September 2010 - How to Get the Most From a Complaint Letter - Some writing advice from English teacher Lida Baker
27 August 2010 - Words and Debates Change With Time, but First Amendment Stays the Same - Law professor Robert Tsai discusses the constitutional right to free expression
27 August 2010 - Language From the Sea, Still Fresh After Centuries - A full catch of nautical terms used in everyday English
12 August 2010 - How a Conversation Can Really Become a Meeting of the Minds - Findings from a brain study by Princeton researchers, including Lauren Silbert
03 August 2010 - How to Avoid Being Seduced by Words That 'Cheapen the Language' - Writing coach Paula LaRocque points out some bad habits of writers
27 July 2010 - Its a Good Idea to Be Careful When You Write -- Oops, Make That It's - Some advice from Charles Harrington Elster, author of "The Accidents of Style."
13 July 2010 - A Website to Say What You Would Have Said, If Only You Could Have - Jackie Hooper started wouldhavesaid.com as a way to give people a second chance.
06 July 2010 - If All Else Fails at a Party, Throw Yourself on the Mercy of the Crowd - Advice from Jeanne Martinet, author of "The Art of Mingling."
30 June 2010 - What Difference Does a Preposition Make? We'll Get Back at You - Author David Thatcher discusses how the wrong one can send the wrong message.
22 June 2010 - Say What You Want on the Web -- But Know You Could Get Sued - Second of a two-part interview with law professor George Pring.
15 June 2010 - One Way to Try to Silence a Critic: Bring a Lawsuit - Law professor George Pring explains cases known as SLAPPs; first of two parts
08 June 2010 - New Book Looks at Influence of Servants on Emily Dickinson's Poems - "Maid as Muse" explores her relationship with her staff in the 19th century.
02 June 2010 - An Introduction to the World of Greetings in the US - "We only use 'how do you do?' the first time we meet," says teacher Lida Baker.
26 May 2010 - For Poor Families, Especially, Books at Home Propel Children to More Years in School - Sociologist Mariah Evans discusses findings of a 20-year study in 27 countries.
18 May 2010 - How to Help Your Baby Learn to Talk? Try Talking to Your Baby - Babies may begin to develop language skills while still in the womb.
12 May 2010 - With Pronouns, Our Brains Don't Always Know What They're Talking About - Psychology researcher Jessica Love explains pronouns' surprising complexity
04 May 2010 - Teaching Students the Words to Think Critically About Science - "Science is argumentation, ultimately," says education researcher Catherine Snow (second of two parts)
27 April 2010 - In Schools, a Way to Keep Language From Getting in the Way of Science - Part one of a two-part interview with Harvard education professor Catherine Snow
20 April 2010 - An Editorialist's Opinion of How to Write Better - Patricia Kelvin, a former newspaperwoman, has advice for students of any subject For more archives, type Wordmaster in search box
13 April 2010 - English Teaching Is Music to the Ears of a Former Pop Promoter - Curt Burich also worked on reality TV, but now aims for reality of a classroom
06 April 2010 - Seeking to Rebuild Lives and Schools in Haiti - Two English teachers from Port-au-Prince discuss efforts to recover from the January earthquake.
23 March 2010 - Happier People Spend Less Time on Small Talk, but Does That Make Them Happier? - "In an otherwise pretty chaotic world, if you have a meaningful conversation, it helps you to understand it," says a University of Arizona psychology researcher.
10 March 2010 - Would a Top Banana Run Around Like a Chicken With Its Head Cut Off? - English teacher Nina Weinstein explains some common idioms in American English.
03 March 2010 - Feeling Burned Out? Maybe Someone Just Needs to Light a Fire Under You - A discussion of fire-related terms with Grant Barrett, a lexicographer and public radio host who recently had a close call with a blaze.
02 February 2010 - If 'the Dictionary' Doesn't List a Word, Try Checking Another Dictionary - In the second of two parts, "Lexicographer's Dilemma" author Jack Lynch explains the dilemma of dictionary makers and other surveyors o
29 January 2010 - Have the Rules of English Changed? Well, What Do You Mean by 'Rules'? - "You have to learn a variety of English. But the mistake is assuming that that is the only correct English," says English professor Jac
20 January 2010 - Now We're Past the, Uh, First Decade, What Do We Call the Next One? - "I think that generally people will use the teens as the decade goes on to refer to that whole decade from 2010 to 2019," says Ben Zimm
06 January 2010 - Five New Year's Resolutions for Learners to Improve Their English - ''My first resolution that I would recommend people make is to spend a certain amount of time listening to English ... whatever suits a
30 December 2009 - Forget the Gunplay, These Cowboys Get Their Kicks From Wordplay - Our New Year's tradition: the music group Riders in the Sky, joined by Johnny Western, tell the story of a fellow with a strange habit
22 December 2009 - Advice (Not 'Advices') and Information (Not 'Informations') About Nouns - English teacher Lida Baker answers a learner in Iran who is confused about count and non-count nouns -- and for good reason
16 December 2009 - A Classic Children's Story, Leavened With Food-Related Slang - David Burke, better known as Slangman, whips together a tangy new version of "Jack and the Beanstalk" just for our audience
08 December 2009 - Health Advice for Couples: When Arguing, Be Careful What You Say - Penn State researcher Jennifer Graham found that married couples who use words that show reasoning have lower blood levels of stress-re
02 December 2009 - Communicating by Hand, From 'OK' to the Ever-Popular 'Digitus Impudicus' - Melissa Wagner, co-author of "Field Guide to Gestures," discusses non-verbal communication, and the misunderstandings that can result
24 November 2009 - 'Black Friday': A Busy Shopping Day for Sure, but a Murky Origin - Amateur linguist Bonnie Taylor-Blake found that retailers tried to put a positive spin on good-natured police slang in Philadelphia for
20 November 2009 - With E-mail, a Few More Keyboard Taps Now Could Save a Lot of Grief Later - "We know that e-mail tends to be misread about fifty percent of the time, the tone of the e-mail,'' says writing trainer Wendi Eldh
03 November 2009 - One Word, Two Opposite Meanings: Terms That Janus Would Have Loved - "Words have a right to change," says linguist and author Richard Lederer, who calls contronyms "one of the most precious categories" of
20 October 2009 - Anyway, at the End of the Day, What Terms Annoy You in Conversation? - Jared Goldman from the Marist Center for Public Opinion discusses a poll in which "whatever" topped four other choices of annoying word
15 October 2009 - Why Handwriting and Spelling Drills, Done in Isolation, Miss the Point - Professor Virginia Berninger, in the second of two parts, says starting even in kindergarten, students should be encouraged to express
05 October 2009 - Which Makes the Better Writer: the Hand or the Keyboard? Age Is a Part - Virginia Berninger, an educational psychologist at the University of Washington, discusses findings from a study of children, in the fi
30 September 2009 - Remembering William Safire, 79, a Maven of the English Language - The New York Times columnist, editor of Safire's Political Dictionary, novelist and former White House speechwriter died of cancer on S
24 September 2009 - 'How Are Yinz Doin?' Pittsburghers Ask; 'Huh?' G20 Leaders May Wonder - ''I didn't realize it growing up, but I spoke a dialect of American English called Pittsburghese,'' Rosanne Skirble explains in a visit
15 September 2009 - To Make a Long Story Short: Summary Skills for Better Readers and Writers - Some advice from Emily Kissner, a schoolteacher in Pennsylvania and author of the book "Summarizing, Paraphrasing and Retelling"
14 September 2009 - Smoothing Out English With Help From Sentence Pronunciation Rules - ''German has a choppy rhythm, Vietnamese has a choppy rhythm. But English doesn't; English wants to be a smooth language,'' says teache
01 September 2009 - Teaching to a New Generation of English Learners in Azerbaijan - Ragsana Mammadova, executive director of the Azerbaijan English Teachers Association, talks about the challenges that her members face
26 August 2009 - You Say LOLL, I say LOHL; Either Way, Emo Kids Won't Be Laughing Out Loud - Oh snap! We have the second of two parts with linguistics professor Pam Munro, editor of the latest edition of a dictionary of slang us
18 August 2009 - In Slang, More to a 'Buck' and Less to a 'Bromance' Than Meets the Eye - First of two parts with linguist Pam Munro, editor of a newly updated dictionary of slang used at the University of California, Los Ang
12 August 2009 - Hitting a Sour Note: The Declining Happiness in Song Lyrics - "In the '80s, you start to see hip-hop and rap and punk and metal and industrial," says the University of Vermont's Chris Danforth. Sec
05 August 2009 - Getting a Read on World Happiness Through the Words of Bloggers - Chris Danforth, an applied mathematician, explains a project based on analyzing the emotional content of millions of sentences. First o
21 July 2009 - You Do Not Have to Watch 'Star Trek' to Learn to Speak Klingon - Learn about this alien-sounding language as we continue our interview with Arika Okrent, author of the new book "In the Land of Invente
14 July 2009 - Feeling Limited by a Language? Here Is a Solution: Invent Your Own - Linguist Arika Okrent, author of the new book "In the Land of Invented Languages," discusses Esperanto and others. First of two parts.
30 June 2009 - 'Ms.' Has a Longer History (or Herstory) Than You Might Think - Word sleuth Ben Zimmer finds a 1901 newspaper article proposing a way to avoid social embarrassment in addressing a woman whose marital
17 June 2009 - Drink the Corporate Kool-Aid? Not If You Want to Sit in the Catbird Seat - Second of a two-part interview with author Ralph Keyes, who explores forgotten origins of American speech in "I Love It When You Talk R
10 June 2009 - Some Terms That Have Outlived Their Roots but Not Their Usefulness - Author Ralph Keyes's newest book is "I Love It When You Talk Retro: Hoochie Coochie, Double Whammy, Drop a Dime, and the Forgotten Orig
03 June 2009 - Exploring 'Myths and Misconceptions' of the English Language - "A lot of people who ask me 'When did Americans lose their British accents?' are very surprised to find that we never had them," says a
27 May 2009 - What Are Your Agenda for the Meeting? (What, Something Wrong With That?) - We discuss linguistic evolution with Pat O'Conner, co-author of "Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Langu
20 May 2009 - Small Talk, American-Style; a Computer Language for Self-Expression - Reports on a program that helps prepare foreign students for U.S. job interviews, and on an easy-to-use programming language called Scr
13 May 2009 - Training Teachers in Places With Few Resources: Lesson From Burkina Faso - "We tell the teachers to have a good attitude, to be fair, to consider themselves as advisers," says teacher-educator Aboubakar Ouedrao
05 May 2009 - How to Write an Essay? Here Is One Persuasive Argument - A community college instructor from Arkansas and an international student from Taiwan (pictured) talk about academic writing in the Uni
17 April 2009 - English Teacher in Cameroon Sends a Positive Message About Texting - Martina Mbayu Nana encourages her students to write to each other to practice their English -- but not to use shorthand when they text
03 April 2009 - Teacher Sees 'Big Push' to Promote English as a Foreign Language in UAE - Leila Mouhanna talks about her eclectic approach to teaching English at a university -- and why she avoids social networking sites
01 April 2009 - English Teachers in Madagascar Give New Meaning to 'Going Green' - "You take your students outside, and then you use everything you see to practice the language point you learned in class," says Volamen
23 March 2009 - To Catch On to Phrasal Verbs, It Helps to Hook Up With an English Teacher - "I think what has given phrasal verbs a reputation for being difficult is the way they are traditionally taught," says Lida Baker
18 March 2009 - Hunting for the Snark in Sarcasm and Anonymous Expression on the Web - "It's a serious issue," says David Denby, author of the new book "Snark: It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining the Conversation"
11 March 2009 - Recession Spawns an Expanding Lexicon for a Shrinking Economy - "You can be 'shovel-ready' even if you don't have a shovel," says dictionary editor Ben Zimmer, who explains that and other terms such
06 March 2009 - Moving Beyond 'It's This or It's This' in Discussing Controversial Topics - Kelly Maxwell, in the second of two parts, says dialogue is about "together, deciding how an individual feels, but then how various gro
24 February 2009 - Teaching Students How to Use Dialogue to Bridge Social Differences - Kelly Maxwell, co-director of the Program on Intergroup Relations at the University of Michigan, discusses how it works, in the first o
18 February 2009 - Wanna, Gonna, Hafta: Getting Relaxed With Reduced Forms of Speech - "There are fifty to seventy common reduced forms that everyone should know from a listening point of view," says English teacher Nina W
11 February 2009 - US Hospitals, Courts Struggle With Growing Demand for Interpreters - In cases where an interpreter is not available in person, telephone and video technology offers ways to provide trained language assist
11 February 2009 - US Hospitals, Courts Struggle With Growing Demand for Interpreters - In cases where an interpreter is not available in person, telephone and video technology offers ways to provide trained language assist
03 February 2009 - A Prenup: The (Legal) Language of Love for Couples About to Marry - "You don't want an agreement that the parties are signing right when they're getting ready to walk down the aisle," says lawyer Marlene
27 January 2009 - Words of Comfort for an Unfortunate Event Other Than a Death - "Even if you make a grammar mistake, or if you accidentally use the wrong word, it's your kindness and your intention that comes across
14 January 2009 - Remembering 2008 in a Word, 'Bailout,' and a Name, 'Barack Obama' - Grant Barrett from the American Dialect Society discusses the results of the group's 19th annual vote for words of the year -- includin
31 December 2008 - Forget the Gunplay, These Cowboys Get Their Kicks From Wordplay - Our New Year's tradition: the music group Riders in the Sky, joined by Johnny Western, tell the story of a fellow with a strange habit
24 December 2008 - Want to Learn Some Slang? Let 'Hansel and Gretel' Show the Way - From the Wordmaster archives, the classic children's tale as retold by Slangman David Burke; plus, find out about his latest project
17 December 2008 - Finding the Right Expression of Sympathy When Someone Is Grieving - "This is a topic that you never see in E.S.L. textbooks. And yet it's so important," says English teacher Lida Baker in the first of tw
09 December 2008 - In Ads, the Right Language Means More Than Just the Words - Researcher Rohini Ahluwalia says it does not matter much if a local company uses a local language or English; not so for multinationals
03 December 2008 - If All Else Fails at a Party, Throw Yourself on the Mercy of the Crowd - "Art of Mingling" author Jeanne Martinet says: "One of my mingling survival rules is that nobody is thinking about you, they're only th
25 November 2008 - 'National Day of Listening' Promoted; Listening to Stories of Poverty - A group urges Americans to record and share oral-history interviews. Also, an anthropologist bases a book on stories of people she met
18 November 2008 - Learning Business English, and a Little Philosophy, in Tough Economic Times - "I think everybody's scared, this is something that we haven't seen in decades, and I think especially for the younger students," says
11 November 2008 - How Noah Webster's Dictionary Defined American English, and His Own Views - Second of two parts: ''He was a great moralist. His moralism pervades the definitions throughout the book. He tells us how to behave."
05 November 2008 - A Few Words About Politics, From the First Name in American Dictionaries - First of two parts with Arthur Schulman, who compiled "Websterisms: A Collection of Words and Definitions Set Forth by the Founding Fat
28 October 2008 - American English Hits a Homer When It Comes to Baseball-Related Idioms - "There's a lot of baseball expressions that really focus on people making mistakes, because errors in baseball are sort of what make th
21 October 2008 - Web Site Offers an Earful of Accents | A Reading of Six-Word Memoirs - Linguist Steven Weinberger talks about accents and his Speech Accent Archive; also, we read seven short -- really short -- stories from
15 October 2008 - What Difference Does a Preposition Make? We'll Get Back at You - David Thatcher, a retired English professor in Canada, has started a Web site called Saving Our Prepositions, with a free ''Guide for t
15 October 2008 - To Be a Good Teacher, 'You Have to Forget About All Your Problems' - Atefeh, first interviewed in 2005 when she was studying English literature at a university in Iran, talks about her switch to teaching
30 September 2008 - How 'Mavericks,' 'Earmarks' Made Their Way From Cows and Pigs Into Politics - More of our conversation with Ben Zimmer from the Visual Thesaurus, looking at the origin of terms from the presidential election campa
23 September 2008 - Knowing the Lingo as Americans Cast Their Ballots, Absentee or Otherwise - Linguist Ben Zimmer explains battleground/swing state, red/blue state, absentee ballot and Hail Mary pass in the first of two parts
22 September 2008 - Special Edition: How 'Bailouts' and 'Golden Parachutes' Got Their Name - We look at two terms used in connection with efforts to rescue financial companies from bad loans and end the crisis in the U.S. financ
15 September 2008 - Calling Young English Learners: Send Us Your Advice for the Candidates - Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, co-director of the National Writing Project, discusses its history and work in trying to improve writing in U.S. s
09 September 2008 - Writing Prompt for Teens: What Issues Should Next US President Address? - A project is giving high school students an opportunity, and an audience, to write a persuasive letter; we are doing the same for Engli
03 September 2008 - Handling Sensitive Topics in the Classroom? Want Some Legal Advice? - "I'd be very careful to make sure that the discussion and the assignments are really closely linked to the topic," says Rutgers Univers
26 August 2008 - When It Comes to Gesturing, Don't Believe Everything You Hear - ''The lore is that northern Europeans gesture less than southern Europeans,'' says psychology professor Susan Goldin-Meadow; second of
20 August 2008 - A Trolley in a Grocery Store? Americans Would Reckon That's Crazy - Dileri Borunda Johnston, author of "Speak American: A Survival Guide to the Language and Culture of the USA," discusses differences bet
20 August 2008 - Where Spoken Languages Divide, Gestures May Offer a Bridge - Susan Goldin-Meadow, a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, finds that people have a common language when they let their
30 July 2008 - To Master Rhythms of English, You Really Hafta Learn Reductions - "We have about four different ways of saying `you' which is 'ya,' 'ja,' 'cha' and even 'ju,'" explains David Burke, better known as Sla
30 July 2008 - Talking in Rhythm: How to Manage the Stresses of American English - ''Learners of English really have to master the rhythms of English early, and the teaching has to be aimed at rhythm,'' says linguist H
09 July 2008 - Think People Always Know When You Are Being Sarcastic? Don't Assume - Kate Rankin, a neuropsychologist at the University of California, San Francisco, discusses the cues of sarcasm, and why some people are
02 July 2008 - George Carlin, 1937-2008: He Found Irreverent Humor in Language - The comedian died June 22 at age 71; he was a 1970s counterculture figure and the subject of a Supreme Court ruling on indecency
24 June 2008 - Would a Top Banana Run Around Like a Chicken With Its Head Cut Off? - You'll be tickled pink as English teacher Nina Weinstein explains some common idioms that involve animals, foods, colors and more
24 June 2008 - Some Political Terms From the Mouths of Presidents (or Their Speechwriters) - VOA's Adam Phillips has the second part of his interview with William Safire, the New York Times language columnist and editor of Safir
12 June 2008 - Looking for Red Meat Political Terms That Won't Bring a Hail of Dead Cats - VOA's Adam Phillips talks with William Safire, the New York Times language columnist and editor of the newly updated Safire's Political
04 June 2008 - Once Upon a Time, a Girl Could Be a Boy, and to Worry Was to Choke - A two-part interview with lexicographer Sol Stienmetz, author of the new book ''Semantic Antics: How and Why Words Change Meaning''
04 June 2008 - Not Only Can Words Tumble, They Can Turn Themselves Around - We talk to Sol Steinmetz, a longtime dictionary editor and author of the new book ''Semantic Antics: How and Why Words Change Meaning''
20 May 2008 - A Lesson Plan, Ready in About a Minute? Free Web Site Is Ambitious - English teacher Stephen Churchville explains LessonWriter.com, which he spent almost six years developing; it creates activities based
13 May 2008 - This Is an English Class, Yet Even the Moroccan Is Speaking Spanish - Lee Spencer, a college instructor in New York, discusses the challenge of getting her class to use English as the medium of communicati
08 May 2008 - In Pakistan, a Big Push to Teach English; Local Versions Flourish - Professor Shujaat Hussain sees a recognition that ''even if we want to have this break with our colonial hangover ... we've got to lear
29 April 2008 - In Angola, Education Ministry Aims to Expand Teaching of English - Francisco Matete, president of the Angolan English Language Teachers Association, says Angolans have to be "English-friendly" to work w
22 April 2008 - Teaching English in Syria: For Some, a Job Is a Matter of Karma - Safwan Abdulsalam Kadoora is director of the English department at the Karma Language Center, which opened in Damascus in 2006
22 April 2008 - US Campaign Offers Lesson for an English Teacher Who Left Iran - Azadeh Leonard, who arrived a year and a half ago and teaches immigrants in New York, has found herself moderating spirited political d
08 April 2008 - An English Professor Who Found a Calling in Web Accessibility - A 2002 interview with John Slatin, who became an activist for the disabled after losing his sight; he died March 24 after losing a batt
08 April 2008 - Step Two in Writing a College Essay: Don't Think It's a College Essay - More advice on crafting a personal statement for U.S. schools, from Rachel Toor, a creative writing professor, college consultant and f
25 March 2008 - Step One to a Personal Statement for College: Make Sure It's Personal - First of two parts with Rachel Toor, author of ''Admissions Confidential: An Insider's Account of the Elite College Selection Process''
18 March 2008 - American Political Lingo, and a Candidate With Name Recognition - Slangman David Burke tells the story of Cinderella, who throws her hat in the ring, figuring herself a shoe-in because the incumbent is
12 March 2008 - What Is the Story of Your Life? Please Summarize in Six Words - Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith solicited six-word memoirs from strangers for a new book; now, they extend an invitation to WORDMAST
10 March 2008 - Key to a Better Accent in English? Students Say It's in the Music - In the second of two parts, English teacher Lida Baker discusses accent improvement methods, and the best time to correct students who
28 February 2008 - How to Reduce an Accent? First, Understand Just What an Accent Is - An online English teacher in the Philippines, Arnel Camba, asks for advice; we turn to our friend the English teacher Lida Baker
20 February 2008 - Trying to Get a Grip on Gestures? Here Is a Handy Book - ''Field Guide to Gestures'' explains more than 100 gestures and their various, and sometimes multiple, meanings around the world
12 February 2008 - Annotation and Other Tips for Getting the Most Out of Textbooks - ''If I see an empty textbook, then I'm seeing a student who hasn't interacted well with a text,'' says English teacher Maria Spelleri.
05 February 2008 - Looking Between the Covers for a Lesson in Textbook Intimacy - Many international students ''just imagine all the potential for forgetting that lies within the covers of those books,'' says teacher
24 January 2008 - An Earl and a Whirl: How Sandwiches and Jacuzzi Baths Got Their Names - More with Philip Dodd, author of ''The Reverend Guppy's Aquarium: From Joseph P. Frisbie to Roy Jacuzzi, How Everyday Items Were Named
17 January 2008 - Meeting Some People Whose Names Went on to Become Household Items - Philip Dodd is author of ''The Reverend Guppy's Aquarium: From Joseph P. Frisbie to Roy Jacuzzi, How Everyday Items Were Named for Extr
08 January 2008 - Creating an Online Community for Trainers of English Teachers - Susan Schwartz, an English as a Second Language teacher in Massachusetts, aims to turn Nexus, an online journal she published, into a g

(E?)(L?) http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/Wordmaster/2007-Archive.cfm

2007 Archives

Five New Year's Resolutions for Learners to Improve Their English - ''My first resolution that I would recommend people make is to spend a certain amount of time listening to English ... whatever suits a person's work schedule''
Words of 2007, From 'Surge' to 'Left of Boom' to 'E-Mail Bankruptcy' - ''E-mail bankruptcy is when you have so much e-mail ... you say to yourself 'I'm not even going to bother with these,''' says lexicographer Grant Barrett
A Fast Way to Make Yourself a Better Understood Speaker? Slow Down - ''Whenever you're speaking to a group you have to slow down anyway, even if you're a native speaker,'' says English teacher Nina Weinstein
Take a Deep Breath: Tips on Preparing for an Oral Presentation - ''A lot of times people are nervous because they're focused on themselves. And I tell them that's not the focus,'' says English teacher Nina Weinstein
Talking Dictionaries on Web Offer an Earful of Pronunciations - We answer some listener questions -- for instance, what do you call people who talk in their sleep?
Meet a Labor Lawyer Whose Labor of Love Is Writing About Slang - A conversation with Tom Dalzell, the senior editor of the New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English
Compounding Makes All the Difference Between a Black Bird and a Blackbird - ''Compounding is when we take two words in English and we put them together to make a brand-new word,'' says teacher and author Lida Baker
Group Led by Seattle Writer Promotes Good (Not Perfect) Grammar - ''I'm pretty regularly told 'You're stupid,' and I would take it a lot more seriously if they used the apostrophe instead of just Y-O-U-R,'' says Martha Brockenbrough
What Aphorists Have to Say About the Cultures That Produced Them - More with James Geary, author of ''Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists,'' who says Ben Franklin was America's first great spinner of philosophical sayings
Aphorisms: How a Few Words Can Speak Volumes About Life and Living - James Geary, author of the newly published ''Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists,'' discusses this literary art form. First of two parts.
How to Use Small Talk to Build a Bridge to the Heart of a Conversation - ''I tell my students this is like playing tennis. When someone says 'Beautiful day today, isn't it?' they've hit the ball to you,'' says English teacher Nina Weinstein
Writer Says Bias Against Sayers of 'Um' May Have Been Stoked by, Uh, Radio - "People who say 'uh' or 'um' are not necessarily uneducated or unprepared or unintelligent," says Michael Erard, author of a new book called "Um..."
No Need to Freak Out About Some Idioms, Even in More Formal Contexts - A. C. Kemp, who teaches English at M.I.T. and runs slangcity.com, discusses frequently used terms from TV shows and movies. Second of two parts
Dude! Check Out Some of the Most Common Slang in Popular Speech - A. C. Kemp, an English teacher at M.I.T. and keeper of slangcity.com, did a computer analysis of TV and movie scripts for us and discusses her findings
Why Some Speeches Just Float Away on the Air and Others Stick in Our Minds - From a C-SPAN television interview, political adviser Frank Luntz discusses his book "Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear"
New Books Cast Cinderella, Other Fairy Tale Stars as Language Teachers - Our friend David Burke, known as Slangman, talks about his latest instructional materials, which are aimed at American children
Program Moves Online to Train Teachers in Global English - ''It's unique because in addition to teaching the skills of teaching English, it engages in the political, economic and cultural theory of what it means to learn English''
In America, Struggling for the 'Correct' Terminology to Discuss Disabilities - ''What's happened is that words that fifty years ago were perfectly acceptable words have become unacceptable words,'' says linguist Mark Aronoff
Showing Students That Good Writing Matters, and Not Just in English Class - Nancy Tuten of Columbia College in South Carolina talks about the value of working with professors in different disciplines to promote writing across the curriculum
'Hypercorrection Is Not Simply Being Fussy or a Nitpicker or a Pedant' - "It means working so hard to avoid one potential problem that you end up falling into another one," says Jack Lynch, an English professor at Rutgers University
Sprinkling a Few Prepositions Into Speech to Sound More Natural - English teacher Nina Weinstein follows up on her advice about handshakes to discuss other areas of business communication, including the importance of eye contact
The Long and Short of Cornering the Market in Global Finance Lingo - ''Even if you speak French, Spanish, German or Mandarin ... finance is only English. It’s actually very mundane English,'' says professor Salih Neftci
How a Handshake Can Say a Lot About You in Business Communication - ''Also, people hug here a lot more than they may in other cultures. My students can be very uncomfortable with that,'' says English teacher Nina Weinstein
Inside the Mind of a Stand-Up Comic Vying for Title of 'Funniest Fed' - ''One of my main goals is I try to make sure everything I say takes about a second to get,'' says Shahryar Rizvi, a computer specialist at the US Census Bureau
Grasping Roots as a Way to Understand Words and Build Vocabulary - "If we learn certain Latin and Greek root words, we have kind of a window into the English language," says teacher and author Nina Weinstein
What Does Ecology Mean to You? No, Really, How Do You Define It? - More of our interview with Rob Jackson, director of Duke University's Global Change Center, about some terms you're likely to hear in the climate change debate
Saving the World, or at Least Understanding What Ecologists Mean - Professor Rob Jackson, director of the Global Change Center at Duke University, explains terms like carbon footprint and cap-and-trade, in the first of two parts
In Moldova, as Demand for English Grows, Teachers Try Best They Can - Viktoriya Galiy, director of a language school in Chisinau, says native speaking teachers and teacher training programs are both in short supply
Think 'Uh Huh' and 'Unh Unh' Sound Alike? Then You'll Be Saying 'Oops!' - English teacher Nina Weinstein takes the confusion out of some common conversational strategies in American English that can help speakers buy time
Teaching English in Central Asia: The View From Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan - Shukry Marash-Ogly is a linguistics professor in Kyrgyzstan. We also hear from Ibrahim Rustamov, a secondary school teacher in Tajikistan.
When Conflicts Follow Young Immigrants to School in a New Land - Yvette Drew, who teaches English as a second language to newcomers in the Atlanta area, discusses why her students are so interested in politics
English Teaching in the Arab World: Insights From Iraq and Libya - Interviews from the TESOL 2007 Convention in Seattle: An Iraqi professor who teaches English teachers, and a Libyan teacher (pictured) in the US to teach Arabic
How to Make a Fashion Statement in a World of 'Voguespeak,' Muffin Tops - Want to be a fashionista, or at least sound like one? Take to the catwalk and learn some of the terms used in the fashion industry
He Shoots, He Scores; She Shoots, She Scores. 'Slam Dunk' Terms Resound - For the start of March Madness, the flurry of college basketball games for the national championship, a look at some of the lingo that has bounced off the court
The More Quotations Change, It Seems, the More They Remain the Same - "I think the quotations of a country express the preoccupations of that country," says Fred Shapiro, editor of the new Yale Book of Quotations
Getting in Tune With Spoken English Means Thinking in Thought Groups - "One of the easiest ways to learn about thought groups is to listen to popular music," says English teacher Lida Baker, who gives advice on improving pronunciation
Smoothing Out English With Help From Sentence Pronunciation Rules - "German has a choppy rhythm, Vietnamese has a choppy rhythm. But English doesn't; English wants to be a smooth language,'' says teacher Nina Weinstein
I Luv U, Do U Luv Me? Relating in the Techno Age; the Mystery of XOX - "Make sure you're matching your personality with the way that you act when you're online," says Kristina Grish, author of the new book "The Joy of Text"
Centuries Later, the Bard of Avon Still Makes His Mark on American English - Yet Shakespeare's language "was pretty much commonplace English" in his time, says Georgianna Ziegler of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington
Pluto Is Reborn as a Verb, While Surge Becomes a 'Hot-Button Word' - English professor Wayne Glowka discusses the American Dialect Society's 2006 Word of the Year, and the dispute over what to call the plan for more troops in Iraq
How Learning a Second Language Inhibits the First, at Least Temporarily - Losing your native language by acquiring a new one? "I would argue that this is actually an adaptive good thing," says Ben Levy at the University of Oregon
'House' or 'Home'? 'Friendlier' or 'More Friendly'? The Web Offers Answers - "What students need to look for when they're using online dictionaries, or any dictionaries, is the usage notes," says English teacher Lida Baker
Wanna, Gonna, Hafta: Getting Relaxed With Reduced Forms in Speech - "I don't advise students unnaturally adapting these forms," says Nina Weinstein, author of the book "Whaddaya Say?" -- find out what she does advise

(E?)(L?) http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/Wordmaster/2006-Archive.cfm

2006 Archives

Terms to Chew Over: 'Hansel and Gretel' Like You've Never Heard It - Enjoy a feast of idioms related to health and gluttony as we present the classic children's fairy tale, as retold by Slangman David Burke
Helping Students to 'Step Out of Apathy': A Lesson From the Holocaust - "One of the premises from which I teach is that students should not be 'witnesses' in a class," says Karen Wink, an English professor at the US Coast Guard Academy
At a Party, If All Else Fails, Throw Yourself on the Mercy of the Crowd - "Art of Mingling" author Jeanne Martinet says: "One of my mingling survival rules is that nobody is thinking about you, they're only thinking about themselves"
Slang in the World of Hooky Bulls, Businessman's Events and Dirt Baths - As guest host Adam Phillips discovers in Montana, the air at a rodeo is thick with the professional lingo of bull riders, ropers and steer wrestlers
Teaching English in Russia: Insights From Two Generations of Teachers - Mikhail Nokhov from Dagestan is an Honored Teacher of Russia who has taught for 38 years; Erdem Dugarov of Siberia has taught for seven years
Teachers of English in Russia Feeling Winds of Change in Their Profession - Two professors, one from St. Petersburg and the other from Kursk, discuss the rise both of American English and technology in language teaching
Hey You, in the Next Cube, Is That Document Buzzword-Compliant? - Writer Paul Dixon talks about some of the terms he included in his newest edition of Slang: The Topical Dictionary of Americanisms
Heated Words: Lingo of the Men and Women Who Fight Wildfires - Not surprisingly, firefighters have developed their own special ways of describing the fires they fight and the techniques they use
"Punctuation Rap"
'National Punctuation Day': Seeking to Put a (Full) Stop to Poor Writing - Newsletter publisher and ex-journalist Jeff Rubin founded National Punctuation Day three years ago to make a point (and for the publicity)
Using Language Technology to Help Learners With Accent Reduction - Discussion of an electronic tutoring product that helps non-native speakers of American English learn to pronounce words with a native accent
A 'Dialect Nomad' Goes in Search of Changes in American English - An interview with linguist Walt Wolfram, co-editor of the new book "American Voices: How Dialects Differ From Coast to Coast"
'Islamofascism': Dusting Off an Old Name for a New Form of Extremism - Manus Midlarsky, a Rutgers University professor who studies war and extremism, discusses the Italian origin and current application of the term "fascism"
Understanding the Reasons for Grammar, Not Just Learning the Rules - "I'm a firm believer that grammar is not only about structure," says Diane Larsen-Freeman, director of the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan
Listening to the Sound of Words for Subtle Clues to Their Meaning - Morten Christiansen at Cornell University discusses a study of "phonological typicality" in nouns and verbs. What's that mean? We explain.
Learning English by Listening, Um, to How People, Uh, Really Speak It - Listen as English teacher Lida Baker, out with a new textbook called "Real Talk," discusses the growing use of authentic listening materials in language classes
'Shifting Sands' of English Teaching Bring Changes to Schools in Middle East - Interviews (recorded earlier this year) with Ghina al-Badawi, a school principal in Beirut, and Nada Wanni of the Department of English at the University of Khartoum
Economists Pursue Happiness by Asking Americans How They Feel - Professor Miles Kimball explains why the University of Michigan has added some happiness-related questions to its monthly survey of consumer confidence
How a Child's Ability to Learn Language Figures Into the Immigration Issue - Hoyt Bleakley at the University of Chicago discusses the linguistic connection between ages and wages in the lives of immigrant families in the U.S.
To Make a Long Story Short: Summary Skills for Better Readers and Writers - Some advice from Emily Kissner, a sixth-grade teacher in Pennsylvania and the author of a new book, "Summarizing, Paraphrasing and Retelling"
Morocco's New Way to Teach English Proves Popular, at Least With Students - "Instead of teaching English in the traditional, boring way, you teach it through exciting and interesting issues," says high school teacher Lahcen Tighoula
Two Places, One Pursuit: English Teaching in Nepal and Afghanistan - Interviews conducted at the 40th annual TESOL convention with an English professor from Kathmandu and a lecturer from Kabul (pictured)
In Choice of Immigration Terms, Some Say Focus on the Act, Not the Actor - Linguist Otto Santa Ana at UCLA says "illegal immigrant" is a biased political term, and that journalists should opt for neutral language like "undocumented immigrant"
What Does It Mean When Something Is 'For Good' or Offered 'On a Plate'? - Find out as we answer listener mail from India, China and Romania, and take an English teacher's advice for using music to teach slang (at left, the singer Rihanna)
Like It or Not, a Discourse Marker Making Its Mark on a Wider Stage - From NBC News, a report on the spread of the word "like," including an interview with Carmen Fought, a linguistics professor at Pitzer College in California
Forget 'Chicken' and 'Egg,' What Comes First With 'After' and 'Before'? - "It's exactly the opposite of what you would expect if you were learning this language -- the word 'after' signals the first event," says English teacher Lida Baker
'The Meaning of Tingo': One Man's Favorite Words, From 254 Languages - And now for something completely different: Adam Jacot de Boinod is a Londoner who has compiled a book of quirky words found in languages other than English.
Lost for Words? Here Are Some Tips to Remember About Improving Memory - "We don't forget, we just haven't learned it in the first place," says communications trainer Wendi Eldh, who explains the "three R's" -- record, retain and retrieve
How 'The Thing' Has Entered the Language of People in New Orleans - Debra Howell, an artist whose home was damaged by Hurricane Katrina, talks about new terms like "The Thing," "Katrina brain," "NUNO" and "pre-K/post-K"
Tribes in California Attempt to Preserve Native American Dialects - More than half of the native California tongues have disappeared. Many others have only a few, aging speakers left.
Concise and Precise: A Way to Force People to Think Before They Write - "This technique benefits clients; it doesn't matter how well-spoken they are or how new they are to the American language," says lawyer-turned-writer Jim Allan
'Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today' - VOA's Book Editor Nancy Beardsley talks (nicely) with Lynne Truss, author of 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves,' whose newest book deals with manners
F-u-n With Broadway's 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee' - A musical satire of spelling competitions and the pressure to "go to Washington," where the best real-life young spellers compete
Stagecraft: Acting Like an Actor to Improve Your Memory - Our guest is Tony Noice, actor, director, teacher and cognitive researcher. He offers some advice based on how actors memorize their lines
'You're Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation' - The title says it all. Georgetown University linguist Deborah Tannen discusses the subject of her latest book with VOA's book editor, Nancy Beardsley
An English Learner Is in a Jam Over What to Call Slow-Moving Traffic - Plus, confusion over the present perfect, and what's the difference between "inhumane" and "inhuman"? Questions from Bangladesh, Morocco and Brazil
Teaching Older People to Become Better Listeners to Avoid Alienating Others - George Shames, a retired psychologist, teaches a course in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that draws on some basic skills of counseling
When There Is Bad News, Helping Cancer Doctors Find the Right Words - Dr. Anthony Back describes a program in which specially trained actors serve as cancer patients for oncologists to improve their communication skills
Self-Instruction: Five New Year's Resolutions for English Learners - "My first resolution that I would recommend people make is to spend a certain amount of time listening to English," says English teacher Lida Baker
What Do 'Refugee,' 'Jump the Couch' and 'Spokesweasel' Have in Common? - They're all terms we discuss with Grant Barrett of the Historical Dictionary of American Slang, in reviewing some notable words of 2005

(E?)(L?) http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/Wordmaster/2005-Archive.cfm
2005 Archives

'Merry Christmas' vs. 'Happy Holidays': More Than a Simple Choice of Words - The paradox of a social greeting that is designed not to offend anyone yet, by its very design, offends some people: why they are unhappy with "Happy Holidays"
New Standards Aim to Strengthen Curriculum for English Learners in U.S. - Kathleen Leos of the U.S. Department of Education explains federal efforts to require states to make sure students are proficient in academic English, not just communicative skills
T Is for Trouble: Consonants Lead to Dissonance for an English Learner - English teacher Lida Baker in Los Angeles answers a question from a listener who wants to know how to pronounce the letter "t" after a stressed syllable
Front Matter Matters: How to Start a Relationship With Your Dictionary - "Lexicographers spend a lot of time and effort writing the introduction to the dictionary," says Erin McKean of Oxford University Press. Second of two parts.
What Does It Say About You if Your Doppelganger Is Facinorous? - Find out from Anu Garg, author of "Another Word A Day: An All-New Romp Through Some of the Most Unusual and Intriguing Words in English"
A Guide to Writing, Now Illustrated: Stylish New Look for 'Elements of Style' - A new edition of Strunk and White's classic work comes whimsically illustrated by the artist Maira Kalman, inspired by examples in the book
Small Talk: Think of It as an 'Appetizer' for a Full Meal of Conversation - Debra Fine, author of the new book "The Fine Art of Small Talk," offers advice about how to start conversations and keep them going
In Oregon, 'Heritage Speakers' of Farsi Get to Learn From a Young Native - Musa Nushi, trained as an English teacher, will spend 10 months in the U.S. through a program of the Institute of International Education.
Getting Ready for the Speaking Section on the New TOEFL - "We've spent about 10 years developing the test, and we've changed the theoretical underpinning of the test itself": second of two parts.
Literary Voice: Don't Parrot Cliches, but Do Read, Read, Read - Professor Ben Yagoda says what sets writers apart most "is the extent to which that writer is more of a spoken writer or a written writer." Second of two parts.
'We're Americans, We're Not Refugees' - A report on the origins of the term "refugee," and the dispute over the use of that word to describe victims displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
Language From the Sea, and Still Fresh After All These Years - A best-of-Wordmaster: maritime terms in everyday English. We talked to Alan Hartley, an independent researcher for the Oxford English Dictionary.
If You Could Care Less About Common Errors in English ... - ... then your interest probably won't center around the work of Paul Brians at Washington State University. But if you need any help at all, its useful.
How a Secret-But-Not-So-Secret Code Let Women in China Share Hardships - American novelist Lisa See, in "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan," tells about a written language used by women in a remote part of 19th-century China.
Does It Matter if Stocks 'Climb' Rather Than 'Bounce Back'? - Yes, says Michael Morris of Columbia University. A study found that metaphors used in the media to describe price trends can influence expectations.
Talking to Teens (and Getting a Reply) - "Parents sometimes feel fearful of their teenager, so they hang on to what they learned when they got their M.B.A.," child psychiatrist Elizabeth Berger says.
Gerunds vs. Infinitives, Part 2 - English teacher Lida Baker offers a strategy to make it easier to learn which verbs take a gerund, which verbs take an infinitive and which verbs can take either.
Gerunds vs. Infinitives, Part 1 - English teacher Lida Baker in Los Angeles talks about when to use the infinitive form of a verb, when to use the gerund form, and when it's OK to use either one.
Language of Showbiz - The show business trade paper Variety turns 100 this year, and it continues to vex and amuse its readers with a language all its own. Reporter Gloria Hillard explains from H'w'd.
June 22, 2005 - Emotion in Words: Think of how many emotions our voices are able to convey. English teacher Lida Baker says meaning changes by modifying the tone of voice in subtle ways.
June 1, 2005 - U.S. Academic Writing Style, Part 2: M.I.T.'s Jane Dunphy says: "Read. I think that you develop instincts that are very hard to learn if you sit down and try to memorize or try to learn them through translation."
May 25, 2005 - U.S. Academic Writing Style, Part 1: "Grad students often come here without ever having had to write a document. Never in English, often in their own language, they haven't had to really write anything," says Jane Dunphy at M.I.T.
May 18, 2005 - 'Do You Speak American?': Journalist and author Robert MacNeil explores language changes in America, 20 years after he wrote "The Story of English."
May 18, 2005 - 'Do You Speak American?': Journalist and author Robert MacNeil explores language changes in America, 20 years after he wrote "The Story of English."
May 11, 2005 - Audience Mail: We answer questions from two Indonesian listeners. And we talk to a former listener who found her English language skills as an American in demand while living in Moscow.
May 4, 2005 - Meet Two More English Teachers: "There are many, many Chinese people who want to learn English, but most of the contents of the textbooks are out-of-date," says teacher Qu Gang. We also talk to the manager of the College of Micronesia-FSM radio station.
April 27, 2005 - Compounding in English: "Compounding is when we take two words in English and we put them together to make a brand-new word," explains English teacher Lida Baker in Los Angeles.
April 20, 2005 - Pronunciation of North American English: Colleen Meyers, co-author of the "Pronunciation for Success" program for non-native English speakers, offers some advice.
April 13, 2005 - Meet Two Young English Teachers: Niso Mamatkulova, from Uzbekistan, says students need a lot of freedom. Sam Ahmad, an American, wants to teach and travel. So why is he in law school?
March 16, 2005 - Memory Improvement: "In addition to the epiphany of learning that until you learn it you can't forget it, I think the other thing to realize about memory is that it takes a tremendous amount of discipline," says trainer Wendi Eldh.
March 9, 2005 - Interview with an English Learner in Iran: Atefeh, an English literature student at an Iranian university, describes her own strategy for learning the language.
March 2, 2005 - Linguistic Profiling: "Although most learners of English as a second language aren't aware of this, it's virtually impossible to learn English without learning some dialect of English," says linguist Walt Wolfram.
February 22, 2005 - Greetings in the U.S.: English teacher Lida Baker in Los Angeles discusses some of the ways that Americans say hello, from the casual "hey" to the formal "how do you do?"
February 16, 2005 - Emotion Words: Penn State Professor Robert Schrauf discusses findings that 50 percent of the words most commonly associated with emotions are negative, 30 percent positive and 20 percent neutral.
February 9, 2005 - Pretentious Language: Ken Smith has written his second book attacking "junk English," but admits: "If you speak precisely in idiomatic American English, it almost sounds pretentious."
February 2, 2005 - Internet Terms: Online users may be annoyed, amused or simply resigned to all the words that pop up in technical lingo, only to cross over into everyday speech.
January 26, 2005 - Questions About Pronunciation and Style: English teacher Lida Baker answers a question from Iran about the difference between U.S.A. and USA, and one from China involving voiced and voiceless sounds.
January 19, 2005 - Interview with William Labov: Sound Change, Part 2: "People used to think that the American dialects are the result of all the immigrants coming in. And that turns out to be just the opposite," says the linguist William Labov.
January 12, 2005 - Interview with William Labov: Sound Change, Part 1: We talk with William Labov, the prominent linguist at the University of Pennsylvania, about the "Northern Cities Shift" and other differences in dialects in the United States.
December 29, 2004 - Top 10 Words Looked Up Online in 2004: Peter Sokolowski, an editor at Merriam-Webster, lists the top words looked up in 2004 in the company's online dictionary.

(E?)(L?) http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/Wordmaster/2004-Archive.cfm
2004 Archives

December 22, 2004 - Lida Baker: Five New Year's Resolutions for English Learners: English teacher Lida Baker in Los Angeles offers suggestions about ways for people to improve their language skills.
December 15, 2004 - Pronunciation, Part 2: Jim Tedder, the creator of VOA's online Pronunciation Guide, answers a listener in China who asks about the correct way to say "either."
December 8, 2004 - Pronunciation, Part 1: With the VOA Pronunciation Guide, anyone on the Web who needs to know how to say a name in the news might find it just a click or two away. We talk to Jim Tedder, the man behind it.
November 17, 2004 - Proverbs in American English, Part 2: University of Vermont Professor Wolfgang Mieder explains why many nations have the same proverbs. Just a case of great minds thinking alike?
November 10, 2004 - Proverbs in American English, Part 1: Proverbs, says Professor Wolfgang Mieder, "are based on life's observations, generalizations and experiences, and they are as contradictory as life itself."
October 28, 2004 - Creative Writing, Part 2: We continue our discussion with Chitra Divakaruni, a novelist who is also a professor of creative writing. She says: "Fortunately, in some ways, writing is not a totally logical process."
October 21, 2004 - Creative Writing, Part 1: Chitra Divakaruni is just out with her newest novel, "Queen of Dreams." But she is also a professor of creating writing. So get ready for a lesson in how to awaken the writer within.
October 7, 2004 - Lida Baker: Crafting a Complaint: English teacher Lida Baker answers a question from an English teacher in Iran whose students would like to know the proper way to complain.
September 30, 2004 - Language of Broadway: Backstage in the theater district in New York City is an entire world in itself complete with its own colorful -- and often highly dramatic -- vocabulary. VOA's Adam Phillips listens in.
September 23, 2004 - Native American Influence on English: An interview with linguist Marianne Mithun to mark the opening (pictured) of the National Museum of the American Indian.
September 16, 2004 - 'Presidential Voices': We speak with Allan Metcalf, whose latest book is "Presidential Voices: Speaking Styles from George Washington to George W. Bush."
September 9, 2004 - Epigram Writer: Ashleigh Brilliant has written nearly 10,000 short, pithy sayings printed in newspapers and books and on postcards and T-shirts. Says the Los Angeles man: "I've grown a little weary."
August 26, 2004 - 'Hatchet Jobs & Hardball: The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang': Grant Barrett, editor of this new dictionary, sails through terms like "527," "red states/blue states," and "hook and bullet crowd."
August 19, 2004 - Linguistic Diversity in Action: Reporter Alex Cohen visits a little city south of Los Angeles where nearly 40 languages are spoken. Though the variety provides cultural diversity, it can also create challenges for the residents.
August 12, 2004 - Lida Baker: Present Perfect Tense: What's the difference between "I ate breakfast" and "I've eaten breakfast?" Lida Baker, our friend the English teacher in Los Angeles, comes to the rescue again to explain a tricky part of grammar.
July 29, 2004 - Confusing Synonyms and Confounding Political Terms: Dictionary editor Peter Sokolowski helps answer some listener questions. He also tells which political terms are being looked up the most in an online dictionary.
July 22, 2004 - Infowalker: Bob Myers runs a software company in California that put a free program on the Internet called Infowalker. He says it is a better way for foreign-language learners, the visually impaired and children to browse the Web.
July 15, 2004 - Baseball in American English: Right off the bat, out of left field, ballpark estimate -- everyday language is full of baseball-related expressions. Step up to the plate and get the home-field advantage.
July 8, 2004 - Lida Baker: Common Sentence Errors: What do you call a sentence like "I never eat chocolate I'm allergic to it"? Find out, as English teacher Lida Baker in Los Angeles explains four kinds of mistakes that she often sees in her students' writing.
July 1, 2004 - Hip-Hop Slang: Hip-hop music, born on the streets of urban American neighborhoods, is one of the top styles in popular culture. It has also had a significant impact on youth slang. VOA's Adam Phillips reports.
June 24, 2004 - Language Map of the United States: An online map created by the Modern Language Association lets anyone look up which languages are spoken, and by how many people, in any neighborhood.
June 17, 2004 - Americanrhetoric.com: Internet users around the world turn to a Web site run by Michael Eidenmuller at the University of Texas at Tyler; he has compiled thousands of significant moments in American rhetoric.
June 10, 2004 - Getting a Job, Part 2: The Interview: Human resources consultant Sharon Armstrong gives advice about how to answer questions intended to put job applicants under pressure.
June 3, 2004 - Getting a Job, Part 1: Resume and Cover Letter: Sharon Armstrong runs a company that helps people find jobs. She says the first step is to draft a resume no more than two pages long and "customized to the company or position you're going for."
May 27, 2004 - Carnival Jargon: Traveling carnivals have lost much of their place in American life. But you'll still find a traditional sideshow at New York's Coney Island, so come along and learn how to talk like a "carnie."
May 13, 2004 - 'Your Own Words' by Barbara Wallraff: In her new book, Atlantic Monthly columnist Barbara Wallraff explains how to be your own language expert; for example, using the Internet to find out the meaning of a new word like "phish."
May 6, 2004 - Easy English Times: Meet the two women in charge of a newspaper that provides information and activities for thousands of English learners in California; Easy English Times started on a kitchen table in 1996.
April 29, 2004 - Meet the English Teachers: Interviews with some who attended the 38th annual TESOL Convention in California, including Tetyana VVedenska of Dnipropetrovsk National University in Ukraine.
April 1, 2004 - TESOL Teacher (Repeat)
March 25, 2004 - TESOL Convention: We focus on one of the themes at the 38th annual meeting of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages: worldwide interest in the theory of multiple intelligences.
March 18, 2004 - Future of English: English is fast becoming the language of science around the world. But what is its future among everyday speakers? VOA Science Correspondent David McAlary talks to two experts with differing views.
March 11, 2004 - Hypercorrection: OK, suppose Gollum here invites you and your friend to the movies to see "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." Do you say, "Gollum invited my friend and I" or "Gollum invited my friend and me"?
February 26, 2004 - Adjectives: "I think the main problem that comes up is that people use adjectives sometimes -- especially beginning writers -- to do the work of nouns and verbs," says English Professor Ben Yagoda at the University of Delaware.
February 19, 2004 - Slang Flashcards: Test your knowledge of terms like "sick," "grip" and "cheese" with Jen Bilik, founder of a company in California with a new product that English learners might find "off da hook."
February 5, 2004 - Political Rhetoric in America, Part 2: When Americans talk about "conservatives" and "liberals," what do they really mean? Political scientist Dennis Goldford says a 21st century conservative may be nothing more than a 19th century liberal.
January 29, 2004 - Political Rhetoric in America, Part 1: It's not often that a speech becomes the talk of the nation. But the one Howard Dean gave after his surprise loss in the Iowa caucuses quickly gained a name: "I Have a Scream."
January 22, 2004 - Lida Baker: Phrasal Verbs: Marry a verb and a preposition, and what do you get? Something that's popular in spoken English but has a bad reputation. Our English-teacher friend offers some advice about how to deal with phrasal verbs.
January 15, 2004 - 'Word of 2003': Members of the American Dialect Society voted for the word which most signifies 2003, and metrosexual beat out SARS. English professor Wayne Glowka, chairman of the new words committee, explains.

(E?)(L?) http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/Wordmaster/2003-Archive.cfm
2003 Archives

December 18, 2003 - 'Spider Hole' and Other Iraq War Terms: News of the arrest of Saddam Hussein included some military lingo that captured a lot of people's curiosity.
December 11, 2003 - RepeatAfterUs.com: Ellie Wen, 16, runs a Web site that offers texts of classics with audio clips to help people practice English. Her work with Latino children in Los Angeles struggling to learn the language inspired her.
November 20, 2003 - Listener Mail: The editor of an aviation history magazine adds to our recent segment on the origin of Murphy's Law. And a listener who heard our report on hand gestures explains the connection between horns and infidelity.
November 13, 2003 - 'The Evasion English Dictionary': Maggie Balistreri became interested in the ways that Americans can say what they would like to say without actually having to say it. Result: an 87-page lexicon with 10 ways alone to use "like."
November 6, 2003 - American National Corpus: The British have one. And now so does American English: a body of words collected to show how people actually use language. We talk to research assistant Paulo Quaglio.
October 30, 2003 - Origin of 'Murphy's Law': It's one of life's little truths: "If anything can go wrong, it will." Bill Sloat (pictured) of the Plain Dealer newspaper in Ohio tells about the history of this popular saying. And, yes, there really was a Murphy.
October 23, 2003 - Slangman: A Really Bad Day: In a letter to Slangmom, our friend David Burke in Los Angeles describes -- in slang, of course -- some events that add up to a day where anything that can go wrong does.
October 9, 2003 - 'Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language': Ilan Stavans, a Mexican-born professor and author in the United States, calls Spanglish "the announcement of a new way of thinking, of a new way of being, by a large portion of the population."
October 2, 2003 - Lida Baker: Thought Groups in Spoken English: English teacher Lida Baker says native speakers instinctively break long sentences into shorter pieces, to help listeners organize the meaning. Many teachers of English now include this skill in pronunciation lessons.
September 25, 2003 - 'Field Guide to Gestures': To Americans this is the sign for "OK." But in other countries it can mean different things. Melissa Wagner, co-author of a new book on gestures, explains (and demonstrates) a few common ones.
September 18, 2003 - Slangman: Food-Related Slang / 'Jack and the Beanstalk': A fresh look at a topic we first did with Slangman David Burke in Los Angeles five years ago. This time, he's whipped up one of his exclusive stories based on a children's classic.
September 11, 2003 - Listener Mail: Letters include questions about the phrases "blue-hatted UN leaders" and "do they ever," and a lament from Russia that Americans don't speak English the way non-native speakers are taught.
September 4, 2003 - Lida Baker: Informality in the Classroom: With the start of a new school year, English teacher Lida Baker in Los Angeles talks about some things that surprise a lot of students who come to the U.S. to study in language programs.
August 21, 2003 - Slangman: Energy-Related Slang: With the recent blackout in parts of the United States and Canada, and the fuel shortages in Phoenix, Arizona, from a ruptured pipeline, we recharge our chat with a live wire who has energy to spare.
August 14, 2003 - Sound of Silence: "North American culture is very quick to fill silences, and some other cultural groups actually find it rude and disruptive," says Stanford University researcher Emily Butler.
August 7, 2003 - Listener Mail: Questions about "ain't," "you bet your [bottom]," "Catch-22," Merriam-Webster's Web site, practicing English -- and comments about Diane Ravitch's book "The Language Police."
July 31, 2003 - Patricia O'Conner: 'Woe Is I': In updating her 1996 book, the author took stock of how American English has changed. She had to reconsider some of her strongly held beliefs -- beliefs held just as strongly, in some cases, by her readers.
July 31, 2003 - Patricia O'Conner: 'Woe Is I': test
July 10, 2003 - 11th Edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: A look at some of the 10,000 new words and meanings in the latest edition of this popular dictionary, including "supermom," "drag-and-drop," "PDA" and "dead presidents."
July 3, 2003 - English in Early America: As Americans celebrate their nation's 227th birthday on the Fourth of July, historian Jill Lepore talks about "how uncomfortable people really were with the idea of English being the American language."
June 26, 2003 - Lida Baker: Encouraging English Learners to Talk in Class, Part 2: This week English teacher Lida Baker focuses on shy students. Learn some techniques to engage those who are especially reluctant to say anything in class.
June 19, 2003 - Lida Baker: Encouraging English Learners to Talk in Class, Part 1: English teacher Lida Baker in Los Angeles offers some ideas about how to create a classroom atmosphere where students feel comfortable to speak up. One technique is a game called "find someone who..."
June 12, 2003 - Advertising to Latinos: "The largest segment of the Hispanic population in the U.S. is U.S.-born, bilingual or English dominant, and that is a population that has been largely ignored," says marketing consultant David Perez.
June 5, 2003 - International Newcomers' Academy: With a new population of immigrants, and new federal standards for English proficiency, teachers in Evansville, Indiana, knew they had to do something, says Sandra Madriaga, a curriculum supervisor.
May 29, 2003 - Slangman: Insults: So what's wrong if someone describes you as having "a great personality"? How is a "dummy" different from an "idiot"? And what man wouldn't want to be called "Mr. Wonderful"? Slangman David Burke explains these and more.
May 22, 2003 - Imagination in Writing: Does the American education system do enough to encourage creative writers? No, says Virginia Monseau, a professor and the editor of English Journal, published by the National Council of Teachers of English.
May 15, 2003 - Cursing in America: "What's happened in our country over the last hundred years is we've shifted from a focus on profanity and blasphemy ... to focus more on words about sexuality," says Tim Jay, an expert on cursing.
May 8, 2003 - 'The Language Police,' Part 2: A new book says pressure groups get educational publishers to censor what students read. This week, we let the publishers respond: They say they only give their customers what they demand.
May 1, 2003 - 'The Language Police,' Part 1: In a new book, educational historian Diane Ravitch argues that publishers use "bias and sensitivity guidelines” to censor tests and textbooks used by American students.
April 24, 2003 - Pronunciation in American English: "Schoolbook language learning tends to give you only a very limited slice of the language, so the big focus now is to try to put yourself in natural language situations," says professor Dennis Baron.
April 17, 2003 - War in American English: "War has always had a special kind of language, particularly in the West, since the middle of the 19th century. It's a mix of bureaucratic and technical jargon and euphemism," linguist Geoffrey Nunberg says.
April 10, 2003 - 'Word Bursts': Computer scientist Jon Kleinberg at Cornell University has developed a program that counts all the different words used in online texts. So what? So how about being able to tell what is on people's minds.
April 3, 2003 - Lida Baker: War and English Teaching: This month's topic with Lida Baker from UCLA's American Language Center: some guidance for English teachers who are looking for ways to use the war in Iraq as a teaching opportunity.
March 27, 2003 - Rhetoric of War: Professor Amos Kiewe, director of the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University, talks about the universal pattern in the political language used during conflicts.
March 19, 2003 - Slangman: Stress-Related Terms: In a segment recorded before the outbreak of war in Iraq, we look at some expressions that describe feelings of tension and anxiety.
March 13, 2003 - Listener Mail: Questions and more questions: what is the meaning of "being," what's an oxymoron, what's a good way to correct students without embarrassment -- and what do Americans say to make a horse go faster?
March 6, 2003 - Anu Garg: A.Word.A.Day: Meet the man behind an e-mail service that provides people around the world with a single English word a day, not just defined but complete with what he calls a full "biography."
February 27, 2003 - Listener Mail: Among your questions we answer: What is a "Catch 22 situation," what does it mean to "second-guess," and why do American women call some men "beefcake" or "stud muffin"?
February 20, 2003 - Lida Baker: Linking and Blending: Why does "put it in a box" sound like "pudding in a box" when Americans say it? Lida Baker from UCLA's American Language Center explains two features of pronunciation that help create the sound of American English.
February 6, 2003 - Trademarking 'Freedom of Expression': Kembrew McLeod teaches communications studies at the University of Iowa. He is also a filmmaker and a writer. And he owns the rights to one of the basic American freedoms.
January 30, 2003 - Slangman: Hand-Related Terms: Nothing underhanded here: We hand off to our friend Slangman, on hand in Los Angeles to lend us a hand, helping our listeners with a hands-on lesson in some handy terms.
January 23, 2003 - Deborah Tannen: Fast Talk: Linguist and author Deborah Tannen criticizes a trend in American TV shows and movies: "In the past, teen-agers might aspire to sound serious like adults. Now we’ve got adults trying to sound like teen-agers."
January 23, 2003 - Fast Talk: fdsfd
January 16, 2003 - Lida Baker: Reduced Forms: Here is a topic that's gonna take some of the confusion out of the way American English sounds. Our English teacher friend in Los Angeles looks at changes that occur with unstressed words.
January 9, 2003 - Sentence Structure: Brian Backman, an English teacher (and Wordmaster fan) at a high school in the northwestern United States, talks about some of the basics of what he calls "the amazing English sentence."

(E?)(L?) http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/Wordmaster/2002-Archive.cfm
2002 Archives

February 2, 2002 - Biathlon: This Olympian explains some of the terms of his skiing-shooting sport; could Rosanne have been a contender?
January 6, 2002: Bicycle Messenger Slang: Couriers have developed their own colorful language to describe their work.
January 27, 2002 - Learning English Online: An interview with Charles Kelly, an American professor in Japan who maintains three Web sites for ESL students and teachers.
December 26, 2002 - American vs. British English: Author Dileri Borunda Johnston used to live in England, so she knows what it's like from both sides of the linguistic divide.
December 19, 2002 - Campus Slang: Pam Munro, a linguistics professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, tells the results of her latest survey of student slang; "hella" tops the list, which also includes "a grip" and "fo sheezy."
December 12, 2002 - Excuses: Just in time for those New Year's resolutions, the art of making excuses -- and the danger. "What excuses do is try to diminish personal responsibility," says social psychologist Barry Schlenker.
December 5, 2002 - Rap Freestyling: A primer on improvisational rhyming from Washington hip-hop artist Priest Da Nomad, who says this form of rap music takes a lot of hard work: "It's like going to the gym with your brain."
November 21, 2002 - Law and Language: David Franklin teaches law and writes a column on language. He says lawyers use words as tools of the trade, but in many cases misuse them.
November 28, 2002 - Writing Thank-You Notes: As Americans observed the Thanksgiving holiday, some tips from a greeting-card writer who really knows how to put the thanks in giving.
November 14, 2002 - Lida Baker: Listener Questions: Examples of how word emphasis can dictate meaning, and suggestions for ways to motivate English learners to discuss current events in class.
November 7, 2002 - Slangman: Political Terms ('Cinderella'): Slangman David Burke in Los Angeles tells an Election Day story about one candidate who had no problem with name recognition.
October 31, 2002 - Listener Mail: Sing along as we explain some Frank Sinatra lyrics and check into whether it's better to name a hotel "Hotel California" or "California Hotel."
October 17, 2002 - 'Who's on First?': To honor the World Series, we play a linguistically challenging baseball skit performed years ago by comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.
October 10, 2002 - Lida Baker: Names in America: English teacher Lida Baker in Los Angeles talks about some of the ways foreign students choose nicknames -- and some names to avoid.
October 3, 2002 - Wordtree Reverse Dictionary: Meet Henry Burger, an anthropologist who is publisher of a book that, through a series of branchings, takes you from an idea to a precise verb.
September 26, 2002 - Memory Improvement: Fear not, says communications and memory trainer Wendi Eldh: "We don't forget, we just haven't learned it in the first place."
September 19, 2002 - 'Predicting New Words': Allan Metcalf of the American Dialect Society joins us to talk about his latest book, which looks at the secrets of success.
September 12, 2002 - Finding Words for Sept. 11, Part 2: Terms like "hero" have new resonance, says Merriam-Webster's John Morse, but U.S. economic woes have spawned more new words than the attacks have.
August 22, 2002 - Web Accessibility: Meet John Slatin, a professor at the University of Texas who works to make the Internet easier for people with disabilities to use.
August 29, 2002 - Grammar Lady: Only One You: Mary Newton Bruder offers advice to speakers of languages that, unlike English, have formal and informal syntax to address another person.
August 15, 2002 - Lida Baker: Exceptional Verbs: Our English teacher friend explains when to use the preposition "to" -- and when not to -- with the verbs "let," "make" and "have."
August 1, 2002 - Slangman: Corporate Crime: Slangman David Burke in Los Angeles takes a timely accounting of cooked books, whistle-blowers and fears of getting "Enroned."
July 25, 2002 - TOEFL: Mari Pearlman of the Educational Testing Service explains the Test of English as a Foreign Language; get ready for the next generation.
July 18, 2002 - Getting a Job, Part 2: The Interview: Advice from human resources consultant Sharon Armstrong for giving good answers to questions that are designed to put you on the spot.
July 11, 2002 - Getting a Job, Part 1: Resume and Cover Letter: Sharon Armstrong offers some suggestions.
July 7, 2002 - Grammar Lady: Verb Phrases: We called up Mary Newton Bruder and called on her to talk about idioms where small differences can mean a lot.
June 27, 2002 - Medical Interpreters: VOA's Laurie Kassman reports on the linguistic challenges that US health workers face as a result of the nation’s growing immigrant population.
June 20, 2002 - Lida Baker: Modals: Modals are words like "can" and "must"; English teacher Lida Baker says one of the tricky things is that most can be used in more than one way.
June 13, 2002 - Slangman: Whimsy: Slangman David Burke presents a fancy-shmancy assortment of words and phrases to liven up anyone's vocabulary (just don't call them froufrou!)
May 30, 2002 - Spider-Related Expressions: Meet a real spider man: Al York is an entomology professor who teaches a popular course at Purdue University all about our eight-legged friends.
May 23, 2002 - Lida Baker: Making a Request: How to ask someone for something, as in: "Could you help us out?" That's what we asked ESL teacher and author Lida Baker in Los Angeles.
May 16, 2002 - Persuasion and Resistance: Eric Knowles, a social psychologist at the University of Arkansas, makes a case for how to craft effective messages.
May 9, 2002 - Weasel Words: Ron Walters is a history professor at Johns Hopkins University with some advice that could make you a better writer in the future.
May 2, 2002 - 'Lower 48 States' and 'Synergy' Explained: Call it synergy? Barbara Maxwell and her small software company were ahead of their time in choosing a name.
April 25, 2002 - Slangman: Construction-Related Terms ('The Three Little Pigs'): Slangman David Burke hits the nail on the head with words that take on other meanings outside the building trades.
April 18, 2002 - English Teaching Starts Earlier: Neil Anderson, immediate past president of TESOL, discusses the global trend in teaching to younger and younger ages.
April 14, 2002 - 'Minority' and 'AHANA': Has the lexicon of racial and ethnic politics outgrown the word "minority"? Reporter Phillip Martin in Boston examines an alternative.
April 7, 2002 - Lida Baker: Pronouncing 'th': Some sound advice from Lida Baker, who says the good news is that it's easy to learn.
March 31, 2002 - New Words: Burkha, Taleban, weaponize, hawala -- these are some of the new entries in the latest edition of a major US dictionary.
March 24, 2002 - 'Kangaroo Court': Word hunter Barry Popik swoops down on "kangaroo court," to answer questions from listeners.
March 17, 2002 - Slangman: Bird Terms ('The Ugly Duckling')
March 10, 2002 - Language of Electronic Mail: Be careful about being too casual, says American University's Naomi Baron, author of "Alphabet to Email."
March 3, 2002 - Lida Baker: Using a Dictionary: Lida Baker at UCLA says a good dictionary contains more information than many English learners are even aware.

(E?)(L?) http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/Wordmaster/2001-Archive.cfm
2001 Archives

December 23, 2001 - Slangman: Health Slang ('Hansel and Gretel')
December 16, 2001 - 'Junk English'
December 9, 2001 - Lida Baker: Stress in American English: She says the basic rule when speaking is to put emphasis on "content words" like nouns and verbs -- the words that convey information.
December 2, 2001 - English Teachers Convention, Part 2
November 25, 2001 - English Teachers Convention, Part 1
November 18, 2001 - Supreme Court Dictionary Use
November 11, 2001 - Telephone Etiquette
November 4, 2001 - Slangman: Old Slang ('Little Red Riding Hood')
October 28, 2001 - TESOL Teacher
October 21, 2001 - Grammar Lady: Listener Mail
October 14, 2001 - Language of Terror, Part 2
October 7, 2001 - Language of Terror, Part 1
September 30, 2001 - How America Got Its Name, Part 2
September 23, 2001 - How America Got Its Name, Part 1
September 9, 2001 - Gossip
September 2, 2001 - Race Terms
August 26, 2001 - Peace terms
August 19, 2001 - Military Terms in Civilian Use
August 12, 2001 - Cliches
August 5, 2001 - Slangman: Action Words ('Goldilocks and the Three Bears')
July 29, 2001 - Grammar Lady: Verb Phrases
July 22, 2001 - 'They Have a Word For It'
July 15, 2001 - Ear for Emotion?
July 1, 2001 - Listeners' Questions About Grammar
June 24, 2001 - Political Marketing
June 17, 2001 - Slangman: Water Words ('Cinderella')
June 10, 2001 - Grammar Lady: Only One You
June 3, 2001 - Therapeutic Language
May 27, 2001 - Singing Medical School Professor
May 20, 2001 - Language of Privacy
May 13, 2001 - American vs. British English
May 6, 2001 - Slangman: 'Clean' Slang
April 29, 2001 - Baseball Idioms
April 22, 2001 - Diplomatic Language
April 15, 2001 - Gullah Geechee on Sapelo Island, Georgia
April 8, 2001 - Slangman: Misunderstood Idioms
April 1, 2001 - Grammar Lady: English Sentence Order
March 25, 2001 - New York Times Style
March 18, 2001 - Company Names
February 25, 2001 - Slangman: Listener Questions
February 18, 2001 - Slangman: Power Slang

(E?)(L?) http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/Wordmaster/2000-Archive.cfm
2000 Archives

December 24, 2000 - Slangman: Top Ten Slang for 2000
December 17, 2000 - Thank You Notes
December 10, 2000 - Globalization of English
December 3, 2000 - Grammar Lady: SANAM
November 19, 2000 - Presidential Election Terms
November 12, 2000 - Pittsburghese
November 5, 2000 - Election Metaphors
October 29, 2000 - Listener Questions: Essay Writing
October 15, 2000 - Slangman: Business Slang
September 10, 2000 - Writing in English
September 3, 2000 - Grammar Lady: English Spelling
August 27, 2000 - Slangman: Apologies
August 20, 2000 - Al Gore/Style
August 13, 2000 - New Words in Dictionary
August 6, 2000 - George W. Bush/Style
July 30, 2000 - Car Names
July 16, 2000 - Grammar Lady: Asking Questions
July 9, 2000 - Slangman: Business Animals
July 2, 2000 - OK
June 18, 2000 - Grammar Lady: 'There Is' vs. 'There Are'
June 11, 2000 - Slangman: Anatomy of Slang
June 4, 2000 - National Teacher of the Year
May 28, 2000 - Native Americans Object to Jamestown 'Celebration'
May 21, 2000 - Grammar Lady's New Book
May 14, 2000 - Slangman: Reductions
May 7, 2000 - Learning English, Part 2
April 30, 2000 - Learning English, Part 1
April 23, 2000 - Grammar Lady: 'Will' vs. 'Shall'
April 16, 2000 - Slangman: Language of Love
April 9, 2000 - Accents
April 2, 2000 - Teaching English and Science
March 26, 2000 - Grammar Lady: Third Person Singular
March 19, 2000 - Slangman: Non-Words
March 12, 2000 - Bad Hair Day
March 5, 2000 - Jargon
February 27, 2000 - Grammar Lady: Subjunctive 'Will' vs. 'Were'
February 20, 2000 - Slangman: Listener Questions
February 6, 2000 - Road Names
January 30, 2000 - Word of the Millennium
January 23, 2000 - 'Words and Rules' by Steven Pinker
January 16, 2000 - Grammar Lady: Irregular Verbs
January 9, 2000 - Slangman: Timely Slang

(E?)(L?) http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/Wordmaster/1999-Archive.cfm
1999 Archives

December 26, 1999 - Hazard Communication
December 19, 1999 - Language and the Bible
December 12, 1999 - Storm Names
December 5, 1999 - Trade Talk
November 28, 1999 - Navajo Code Talkers
July 18, 1999 - George Carlin
July 4, 1999 - Declaration of Independence Dispute
June 27, 1999 - Fashion Terms
June 13, 1999 - English Spelling
June 6, 1999 - Listener Mail
May 30, 1999 - Slangman: Techno-Slang
May 23, 1999 - Pacific Island Words
October 31, 1999 - Halloween
October 17, 1999 - Slangman: Car Talk
October 3, 1999 - 'The World in So Many Words'
September 5, 1999 - Job Titles
October 10, 1999 - Listener Questions
September 19, 1999 - Education Jargon
September 12, 1999 - Slangman: Food Words
May 9, 1999 - Language of War
May 2, 1999 - Poetry
April 25, 1999 - Slangman: Space Terms
March 28, 1999 - Winners of the Name the Next Decade Contest
October 24, 1999 - Dictionary of Allusions
January 10, 1999 - Name the Next Decade Contest
January 17, 1999 - Word of 1998
January 24, 1999 - State of the Union Analysis
January 31, 1999 - Slangman: Slang Update
February 7, 1999 - African American Vernacular English, Part 1
February 21, 1999 - African American Vernacular English, Part 2
February 28, 1999 - Rap Music
March 7, 1999 - Verbal Abuse
July 11, 1999 - Politically Correct

(E?)(L?) http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/Wordmaster/1998-Archive.cfm

1998 Archives

October 18, 1998 - Baseball Terms
October 4, 1998 - Slangman: Business Terms
September 20, 1998 - Impeachment
August 27, 1998 - Train Lingo

W

Windisch Language of US
Sprache in US

(E?)(L?) http://www.ethnologue.com/
(E3)(L1) http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=slv

...
Separated by the Karawanken Mountains from the larger group of Slovenes in Slovenia. Formerly called “Windisch” pejoratively, an archaic form of Slovene, heavily influenced by German. Some use dialects; others are losing dialect knowledge. Many speakers go to church, where they hear Standard Slovene.
...

wolframalpha
Languages

(E?)(L1) http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/WordsAndLinguistics.html

Languages

get information about a language Mandarin language
compare multiple languages Spanish, French, Latin
find languages spoken in a country languages Spain

Erstellt: 2011-10

wordexplorations

(E?)(L?) http://www.wordexplorations.info
Latin-Greek Cross References
Experience the wonder of words by focusing on the Latin and Greek references used in English.
Leider: The unabridged Latin-Greek Cross-Reference search area is available to paying subscribers only.

wordfocus - Focusing on Words

(E?)(L?) http://www.wordfocus.com/
An advanced Latin-Greek-English vocabulary source of etymologies with thematic units of roots, prefixes, and suffixes, and vocabulary quizzes.
Learn more about Latin and Greek roots in English. This is a subscriber service, but there are still information and teasers available for non-subscribers.
A rich source of information that will enhance your English-vocabulary skills! - Experience the wonder of words by focusing on the Latin and Greek elements used in English.
Aber leider: The unabridged Latin-Greek Cross-Reference search area is available to paying subscribers only.

X

Y

yourdictionary
Archive of Language Articles

(E?)(L?) http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/archive-language.html
24.03.2008:

The Indo-European Language Room
Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans by Calvert Watkins
Table of Indo-Eurpean Languages
Glossary of Proto-Indo-European Roots
The WordMan, Paul J.J. Payack
The Tangles of Time - A Brief History of Chess
The Dustbin of History - How the Infinity Symbol Came into Existence
Steppingstone to the Stars - How the Zero was Discovered
The Lament - The Last Words of the Last Speaker of Proto-Indo-European
An Interview With the Inventor of Words
The Final Farewell: The Official End to the 20th Century
Presidential Debate Analysis
Presidential Debates Mirror Long-term School Decline
Thoughts of Dr. Audra Himes
How We Have Changed (9/11)
A Linguistic Potpourri
How to Use Dictionaries
Linguists See Internet Lingo as Cultural Catalyst
The Impassioned Fight to Save Dying Languages
The Chaos by Gerald Nolst Trenite
The Third English Word Ending on "gry"
The World's Longest Place Name
The Impact of 9/11 on the English Language
A Plethora of Terms: Playing The Veneral Game by Dr. Seth Haber
One Symbol for Every Sound by Wenkai Tay
A Prompt for Finding Essay Topic Ideas by Sheila Bender.
The Collected Works of the Phantom Linguist
How is a Hippo Like a Feather?
How to Pronounce "Ghoti" and Why
But There are no Such Things as Words!
Why We Have to Pay Syntax
Can Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously?
Slithy Toves of Chimpanzees
Mama Teached Me Talk!
Words on Word History by Phil Baldi
Words on Word History: Introduction
Latin in English (Part I)
Latin in English (Part II)
Homosexuals and Homo Sapiens: A Formal Confusion
Heads of Cattle, a Capital Idea
Shabby Seedlings and Tennis Rankings

Z

Buecher zur Kategorie:

Etymologie, Etimología, Étymologie, Etimologia, Etymology
US Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika, Estados Unidos de América, États-Unis d'Amérique, Stati Uniti d'America, United States of America
Sprache, Langue, Language

amazon - Sprache, Lengua, Langue, Lingua, Language

Lingua (IT)

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

Read, Allen Walker
Milestones in the History of English in America

(E?)(L?) http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/082236526X/etymologporta-20
(E?)(L?) http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/082236526X/etymologety0f-21
(E?)(L?) http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/082236526X/etymologetymo-21
(E?)(L?) http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/082236526X/etymologety0d-21
(E?)(L?) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/082236526X/etymologpor09-20
Pads 86 Milestones in the Hist (Publication of the American Dialect Society)
Bibliothekseinband: 144 Seiten
Verlag: Duke University Press (Juni 2002)
Sprache: Englisch

Synopsis
A collection of essays by one of the premier historians of American English, "Milestones in the History of English in America" is a remarkable introduction to Allen Walker Read's work and the ways in which archival materials can illuminate linguistic history. This volume is divided into four sections: the emergence of American English as a distinct form and the attitudes of both Britons and Americans toward its development; the history of the most distinctive and widespread American coinage, "O.K."; euphemism and obscenity; and an autobiographical section that provides a fascinating portrait of a remarkable American scholar.

A

aaal - American Association for Applied Linguistics

about Differences Between American and British English

about - urbanlegends

alphadictionary Dr. Goodword Basics of Language Study

B

bartleby064 American Heritage Book of English Usage

bartleby068 The Columbia Guide to Standard American English

bartleby141 The Elements of Style

bartleby185 The American Language An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States

bartleby186 An Introduction to the Study of Speech

bartleby190 On the Art of Writing

bartleby191 On the Art of Reading

Bering Strait Inupiatun Language of US Sprache von USA

Bering Strait Yupik Language of US Sprache von USA

C

Corsican (W3) Language of US Sprache in US

D

E

effingpot The Best of British

ethnologue - Languages of / Sprachen von USA (Americas)

ethnologue - Abenaki - Language of US

ethnologue - Abnaki, Eastern - Language of US

ethnologue - Acadian - Language of US

ethnologue - Acadian - Language of US

ethnologue - Acadien - Language of US

ethnologue - Acgachemem - Language of US

ethnologue - Achomawi - Language of US

ethnologue - Achumawi - Language of US

ethnologue - Acoma - Language of US

ethnologue - Adyghe - Language of US

ethnologue - Afro-Seminole - Language of US

ethnologue - Afro-Seminole Creole - Language of US

ethnologue - Agachemem - Language of US

ethnologue - Ahahnelin - Language of US

ethnologue - Ahe - Language of US

ethnologue - Ahtena - Language of US

ethnologue - Ahtna - Language of US

ethnologue - Ajachema - Language of US

ethnologue - Ajachemem - Language of US

ethnologue - Akimel O'odham - Language of US

ethnologue - Alabama - Language of US

ethnologue - Albanian, Gheg - Language of US

ethnologue - Albanian, Tosk - Language of US

ethnologue - Aleut - Language of US

ethnologue - Aleut - Language of US

ethnologue - Alibamu - Language of US

ethnologue - Alkansea - Language of US

ethnologue - Alsea - Language of US

ethnologue - Alséya - Language of US

ethnologue - Alutiiq - Language of US

ethnologue - Amerax - Language of US

ethnologue - American Sign Language - Language of US

ethnologue - Ameridish - Language of US

ethnologue - Ameslan - Language of US

ethnologue - Amish Pennsylvania German - Language of US

ethnologue - Anaktuvik Pass Inupiatun - Language of US

ethnologue - Ananin - Language of US

ethnologue - Andaste - Language of US

ethnologue - Angloromani - Language of US

ethnologue - Apache, Jicarilla - Language of US

ethnologue - Apache, Kiowa - Language of US

ethnologue - Apache, Lipan - Language of US

ethnologue - Apache, Mescalero-Chiricahua - Language of US

ethnologue - Apache, Western - Language of US

ethnologue - Apsaalooke - Language of US

ethnologue - Arabic, Judeo-Tunisian - Language of US

ethnologue - Arabic, Najdi Spoken - Language of US

ethnologue - Arapaho - Language of US

ethnologue - Arctic Red River - Language of US

ethnologue - Arctic Village Gwich'in - Language of US

ethnologue - Arikara - Language of US

ethnologue - Arikaree - Language of US

ethnologue - Arikari - Language of US

ethnologue - Arikaris - Language of US

ethnologue - Arkansas - Language of US

ethnologue - Armenian - Language of US

ethnologue - Arrapahoe - Language of US

ethnologue - ASL - Language of US

ethnologue - Assiniboin - Language of US