Monthly Archives: January 2010

Annoying New Word–Intexticated

Posted on January 27, 2010 by languageandgrammar

New products and new technologies often need new words to describe them, but new technology can also be used as an excuse to create a new word when one is not needed. Intexticated is one such example, which, incredibly, was considered … Continue reading →

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The Future is Still Not Now

Posted on January 24, 2010 by languageandgrammar

I’ve written about this problem before, but it’s so pervasive that it bears repeating. While watching the NFL pre-game show in the morning, the question was posed Who wins the game tonight? I’ve also heard on other game days Who … Continue reading →

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Bad Economy–Bad New Words

Posted on January 20, 2010 by languageandgrammar

Whenever I see newly created words, I often think of Sherry’s recently invented word, funfaithful, because her contrived word is at least as good as these new economy words, which were discussed recently on the Oxford University Press USA blog: Funemployed … Continue reading →

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Blog Update–Comments Closed!

Posted on January 16, 2010 by languageandgrammar

Since we’ve always viewed the blog as more of a source of information rather than a forum for discussion, we have decided to close the comments sections on all posts. We will re-open the comments for the Your Pet Peeves page … Continue reading →

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Definition: Minority

Posted on January 15, 2010 by languageandgrammar

I just want to get something straight since this sometimes seems to get confused:  The word minority, as it applies to a population of people, means “a smaller party or group opposed to a majority, as in voting or other … Continue reading →

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Change Out the Football

Posted on January 14, 2010 by languageandgrammar

I recently heard an esteemed celebrity football announcer say during one of the Sunday games that the referee was going to change out the football. Change out? What does it mean to change out? Is it more important to change … Continue reading →

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Factoid Verus Fact

Posted on January 12, 2010 by languageandgrammar

I’ve received some criticism related to my book (Literally, the Best Language Book Ever) for my tendency toward prescriptivism, and we’ve also had some negative comments on the blog for the same reason, but the “word” factoid probably explains the … Continue reading →

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The Opinionator on Language

Posted on January 8, 2010 by languageandgrammar

One of the easiest ways to get a discussion going online is to ask people what words or phrases annoy them more than others, similar to what we’ve done on our Your Pet Peeves page. The Opinionator (Stanley Fish) at … Continue reading →

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Word of the Year–Unfriend

Posted on January 2, 2010 by languageandgrammar

The Oxford English dictionary recently announced its new word of the year for 2009, unfriend. This was no doubt made popular by Facebook, where the act of “friending” and “unfriending” happens all the time. I have wondered about the need of … Continue reading →

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