words

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Please Say 'Person of Color' Here, Not 'Blue Person'

Previous terms in Ireland to describe people who aren't white were confusing, offensive

(Newser) - Up until now, Ireland has struggled with how to describe people who aren't white. Now, the panel that votes on adding new words and terms to the nation's official lexicon have come up with a descriptor: duine de dhath, or "person of color." That may seem...

If You're Dating, You Won't Want to Be a Victim of 'Fauci-ing'

Infectious diseases expert has spurred creation of a whole new word on rejection

(Newser) - Do you know what it means if you're a victim of "Fauci-ing"? Don't worry—neither did the man the term is named after, until Axios filled him in. Dr. Anthony Fauci spoke with the site's managing editor, Margaret Talev, as part of its "Axios...

Guess What Word No One Wants to Hear Ever Again

Michigan college puts 'COVID-19' at top of its annual list of words, terms that should be banished

(Newser) - Even as vaccines are being rolled out to battle COVID-19, wordsmiths at Lake Superior State University in Michigan say they want to kick any trace of the term from the English language. Seven of the top words or phrases selected for 2021 for the school's annual lighthearted compilation of...

Check Out 2020's Most Mispronounced Words

'Fauci' and 'Kamala' are among the toppers

(Newser) - Fauci, Kamala ... da Vinci? America's preeminent infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, and its incoming vice president, Kamala Harris, join the Renaissance master himself, Leonardo da Vinci, atop this year's list of most mispronounced words, as compiled by the US Captioning Company, which captions and subtitles real-time events on...

2020 'Left Us Speechless.' The Word of the Year Reflects That

Oxford simply couldn't pick just one

(Newser) - In 2019, Oxford Languages' word (or term, rather) of the year was "climate emergency." In 2020, however, the publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary ran into a conundrum : It soon realized that this year has been like no other, and one that simply couldn't be summed up...

Dictionary Changes Its Definition of 'Woman'

But Oxford Dictionaries clings to the notion that the 'b-word' means 'woman'

(Newser) - Oxford University Press has amended its dictionaries after a pressure campaign alleged "derogatory" and "sexist" definitions of the word "woman," the Guardian reports. Among the changes to Oxford Dictionaries: A woman is now listed as "a person's wife, girlfriend, or female lover" instead of...

7 Terms You Didn&#39;t Know in January
7 Terms
You Didn't
Know in
January
Oct 28, 2020 7:19 PM CDT

7 Terms You Didn't Know in January

The coronavirus pandemic is adding to, and altering, our vocabulary

(Newser) - Pre-pandemic seems so "lifetime ago." Our health strategies, economy, social lives—they're all transformed. Now Fast Company and the Orange County Register look at another aspect: our changing language. The coronavirus has spawned new phrases (like "quarantini") and added new meaning to ones already lying...

Looks Like Scrabble's Next Move Is Against Slurs

Offensive words may soon be disqualified from game play, per Hasbro and players association

(Newser) - Scrabble competitors may soon have more than 200 words taken out of game play, after recent protests and attention to the Black Lives Matter movement renewed a longtime debate about the n-word and other racial and ethnic slurs, profane terms, and scatalogical references. Mashable reports that the North American Scrabble...

Cartoon 'Spork' Helped Drive Dictionary's Word of the Year

Forky from 'Toy Story 4' understands 'existential' better than many of us, per Dictionary.com

(Newser) - Climate change, gun violence, the very nature of democracy, and an angsty little movie star called Forky helped propel "existential" to Dictionary.com's word of the year. The choice reflects months of high-stakes threats and crises, real and pondered, across the news and the world, and throughout 2019....

M-W in Fighting Mode on One of Its New Words

'They' can now be used as a singular, gender nonbinary pronoun, per Merriam-Webster

(Newser) - "Deep state," "dad joke," and "escape room" may seem ubiquitous in our modern vernacular, but now they're officially part of it. Merriam-Webster has announced the addition of more than 500 words, terms, and new meanings, an etymological evolution it calls "a happy fact...

&#39;World&#39;s Smartest Dog&#39; Dead at 15
'World's
Smartest Dog'
Dead at 15
Jul 29, 2019 11:30 AM CDT

'World's Smartest Dog' Dead at 15

Chaser the border collie knew 1,022 nouns

(Newser) - A border collie that has been called "the world's smartest dog" died Tuesday at age 15. Chaser, a black-and-white pup given to Dr. John W. Pilley by his wife when the dog was 8 weeks old, learned to recognize 1,022 nouns thanks to Pilley's training. The...

Look Up 'Snowflake.' It's Got a New Meaning in the Dictionary

Merriam-Webster adds derogatory meaning for common word, plus a whole lot of other new words

(Newser) - Get swole, prepare a bug-out bag, grab a go-cup, and maybe you'll have a better chance of surviving the omnicide. Translation: Hit the gym and bulk up, put a bunch of stuff essential for survival in an easy-to-carry bag, grab a drink for the road, and perhaps you'll...

No 'Collusion'? That's What the Word Police Have Just Decided

Michigan school puts out annual list of overused words that everyone should just stop saying

(Newser) - No collusion! (Or at least a lot less of it.) That's according to a Michigan school's latest "List of Words Banished From the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use, and General Uselessness." The politically charged term at the center of special prosecutor Robert Mueller's...

What Sealed the Deal in Spelling Bee: 'Koinonia'

Wild card Karthik Nemmani wins Scripps National Spelling Bee

(Newser) - Karthik Nemmani didn't win his regional spelling bee. He didn't even win his county spelling bee. But he was still good enough to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Throwing everything he had into his one shot at glory, 14-year-old Karthik outlasted better-known spellers on Thursday night and...

People in 11 States Can't Spell This One Word

'Beautiful' apparently gets mangled quite a lot; so does 'schedule,' 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious'

(Newser) - The Scripps National Spelling Bee is underway this week, and while viewers play along at home, they may want to bone up on certain words based on their location. Per People , Google Trends checked out online searches for each state that included the term "how to spell" to come...

AP Word Cloud Deciphers N. Korea's Propaganda

Pyongyang's news arm is quite enamored of Kim Jong Un, 'nuclear,' and 'war'

(Newser) - Kim. Nuclear. War. Nothing sums up the message embedded in North Korea's propaganda better than those three words. That's exactly what the world hears—and what's revealed in this word cloud, a visual display of terms used by the KCNA. The AP boiled down 1,542 stories...

Ivanka, Jeff Flake Uttered Dictionary.com's Word of Year

So did Scarlett Johansson

(Newser) - Russian election influence, the ever-widening sexual harassment scandal, mass shootings, and the opioid epidemic helped elevate the word "complicit" as Dictionary.com's word of the year for 2017. Look-ups of the word increased nearly 300% over last year as "complicit" hit just about every hot button, from...

Man Says Road Sign Was Too Wordy, Beats Speeding Ticket


Wordy Road
Sign Gets Man
Out of His Ticket
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Jul 9, 2017 8:33 AM CDT

Wordy Road Sign Gets Man Out of His Ticket

Seattle's Jason Canfield spent $800 to prove his point about school speed zone

(Newser) - When Jason Canfield got a speeding ticket in May 2016, he didn't pull out his checkbook to pay the $234 fine: He started gathering records of national and state traffic codes to contest the charge of driving too fast in a Seattle school zone. And his efforts paid off,...

Oxford Dictionary Boasts a New Final Word

'Zyzzyva' has been added, as have 'post-truth,' 'unclick,' and a word describing sperm

(Newser) - And you thought "covfefe" was hard to pronounce. The Oxford English Dictionary has added more than 1,200 new "words, phrases, and senses" to its tome, per a blog post , and among them is an entry that nabs the spot as the last word in the book. "...

Can You Name 'Light Blue' Using Just One Word?

The Japanese call light blue "mizu," or water

(Newser) - In Japan, there are a dozen basic colors that almost everyone in a recent survey was able to name using one word. And 11 of them—black, white, gray, blue, green, yellow, red, purple, brown, pink, and orange—all overlap with the basic colors Americans can describe in one word....

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