Lexical Vexations Lee requested this classic lexical vexation, one that trips up the best of us from time to time. Thanks, Lee! their adj. the possessive form of the pronoun they. there 1. adv. a word used to designate a location that is at a distance, near or far, from the one using the word. 2. […]

Lexical Vexations lightening v. inflected form of the verb to lighten, as of weight, illumination, or colour. lightning n. the discharge of electricity in the atmosphere. Words in the Wild: The horizon had been lightening by degrees for the past half hour when the storm blew through and lightning flashed, illuminating the city. The contributor of […]

Sometimes you just need a hyphen. You really do. Here’s proof: He was a big-city worker, a cold-case officer with slicked-back hair. is very different from He was a big city worker, a cold case officer with slicked back hair. In the first case we have an urbanite with a sleek coiffure who works on cold […]

Guest Post Today’s guest post is brought to you by Stephanie. You can find her over at theoldyoungadult.blogspot.com. This is her first flowchart. Be nice. Have you ever been frustrated by the lack of proper spelling and grammar on the Internet? It is a dangerous, scary world out there. Venture away from the Word Blog for […]

Recommended Read Crystal, David. Txtng: The gr8 db8. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2008. [ISBN-13: 978-0-19-957133-8] One of the most notable things about texting is the impressive furor that has accompanied its meteoric rise in popularity over the past ten years or so.  David Crystal recounts some of the many dire warnings texting has occassioned, quoting […]

Welcome to the new year, fellow logophiles. I hope that your 2009 was chockful of new vocabulary, fantastic friends, great reads, fascinating conversations, wholesome fun, and above all, words! And, of course, I wish you a 2010 full of more of the same. So to start the year off right, here’s a roundup of my […]

I spent last weekend mingling with 200 or so other editors at the Editors’ Association of Canada’s 2009 conference. It’s very rare that you’d find so many of us in one place  since editors on the whole tend toward being a retiring lot. Our solitary toiling over thick manuscripts and flickering computer screens doesn’t always […]