Showing posts with label vocabulary words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vocabulary words. Show all posts
Saturday, September 19, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: A guide to conspiracy theory slang.

›
Here's one that we can add to Nawbany's lexicon. Pyro·demo · redevelopment : the coincidence wherein buildings standing in the way...
Wednesday, May 27, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS (Encore Edition): Hapax. Nonce. Googlewhack.

›
(originally published on October 25, 2017) Back in 2007, a blogger for the Oxford University Press greeted the release of a new edition...
1 comment:
Saturday, May 16, 2020

ON THE AVENUES: Food is my friend, but please, I'm no foodie.

›
What is a “foodie,” anyway, other than a concept I’ve never thought applied to me in the slightest? According to Merriam-Webster , a fo...
Wednesday, May 13, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS (ENCORE EDITION): The amazing versatility of the word "piss" (PG-13).

›
I’ve been digging the opportunity to wear a COVID mask in public, while conceding that as a white guy, I can do it without being howitzered ...
Wednesday, May 06, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: The PLANdemic is hokum, doofus.

›
Here's the best current definition of the word "hokum." It's so obvious that even the namesake of this column unde...
Wednesday, April 22, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Lockdown language learning (hazardous foreigner edition).

›
It is a matter of considerable disappointment that I’ve never learned to speak a foreign language, at least outside of Restaurant Menu Ge...
Wednesday, April 08, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: The German word Fernweh, or "farsickness."

›
Homesickness for a place I've never been? The concept is discussed in the article linked below. The answer in my own personal insta...
Wednesday, April 01, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Supergrass!

›
Supergrass was a ferocious, witty, joyous band generally associated with the 1990s-era "Britpop" rock-with-actual-instruments p...
Wednesday, March 25, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Marshal your TP stash just in case martial law is imposed.

›
We're informed by The Economist that while overall literacy never seems to improve, people actually seek a dictionary during trying ...
Wednesday, March 18, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Normalcy or normality? I've made up my mind.

›
There's damage out there some place You got to step aside Where are you going that decision is made That's how it started Too...
Wednesday, March 11, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: We're utterly gobsmacked at an unexpected Extol absence.

›
Leafing through the latest edition of Extol Magazine , we're  gobsmacked to see that the City of New Albany no longer is listed amon...
Wednesday, March 04, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Make water closets, not clocks. Or something redevelopmental.

›
I may be the only one who would stitch together public toilets, mayoral megalomania and water clocks, but after all, someone's got to d...
Wednesday, February 26, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Elephant in the room? Make mine pink -- or was that punk?

›
One might be even more of an elephant in the room by wearing a gorilla suit. The expression "elephant in the room" (usually...
Wednesday, February 19, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Gobermouch Mumblecrust and Smellfungus -- among other legal firms.

›
Google "old English insults" and you'll come up with numerous lists like this one. For British insults belonging to contemp...
Wednesday, February 12, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Gorilla, guerrilla and other curious attributes of urban narcissism.

›
A fine 1973 single by Hawkwind, with Lemmy on rhythm bass. Meanwhile the words gorilla and guerrilla have quite different meanings, but...
Wednesday, February 05, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Is it discreet, or discrete ... circumspect or distinct?

›
There are numerous examples in English of confusing word pairs, sounding similar but with different meanings . Examples: lose and loo...
Wednesday, January 29, 2020

The return of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Sycophants and other brown-nosing spaniels.

›
Following is an encore presentation of the SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS column from June 8, 2016 . The idea for a column about words an...
Sunday, January 05, 2020

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: A slippery slope all the way to ... the point of no return?

›
Manic Street Preachers had a hit song in 1998 with a variation on a theme of slippery slopes. The future teaches you to be alone The p...
Saturday, December 28, 2019

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: The unremitting scourge of bangorrhea.

›
(Originally published on August 18, 2018) No sirree, I won't back down. I will continue my lonely struggle against bangorrhea (ex...
Wednesday, December 11, 2019

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Classist versus classicist, in beer and at other places.

›
Classism versus classicism? The words have very different meanings. classism [klas-iz-uh m] noun a biased or discriminatory attitud...