When it comes to pronunciation, there’s always something to argue about. And we’ve all done it –whether standing in line at Starbucks arguing about espresso or throwing down about whether or not to enunciate the ‘r’ in the second month of the year. So here’s more grist for the argument mill. 1. timbre If you’re […]
We previously looked at the names for specific baby animals, so now it’s time to turn our attention to words for male and female animals. Explore the list below to discover the names for a female hedgehog, a male swan, and many others. animal female male ant queen / worker drone antelope doe buck bear […]
Do you know your hangi from your hongi? New Zealand English is the latest in our series of quizzes testing your knowledge of World Englishes: we’ve asked about British, American, Indian, Australian, South African, Northern Irish, and Canadian English, so it’s about time that we paid a visit to our Kiwi cousins. Whether you’ve visited New Zealand or […]
“I am, by calling, a dealer in words; and words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” Rudyard Kipling’s linguistic legacy is apparent from the more than 2500 quotations from his works that appear in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED); the term Kiplingism even has its own entry. This turns out to […]
Do you fancy yourself something of a Shakespeare scholar? Can you separate falchion, scimitar, and poniard? Our friends in Children’s Books have put together a tough little quiz about the language of Shakespeare, so we wanted to share it and test OxfordWords readers. How will you do? William Shakespeare was an English dramatist, poet, and actor who is often […]
In the social-media-driven world of today, the ‘hot take’ is the bread and butter of online publications. Recently added to OxfordDictionaries.com, the word hot take refers to ‘a piece of commentary, typically produced quickly in response to a recent event, whose primary purpose is to attract attention’. How ‘hot’ is the ‘hot take’? Quite hot. […]
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From cottage-garden to Wild West: discover Charlotte Brontë in the @OED. bit.ly/1j7tKBk #Brontë200 pic.twitter.com/jnCz6XgKIq
8 unexpected origins of everyday phrases: bit.ly/1NCPSDT pic.twitter.com/DcY7SLw02s
‘The glory of my crown’: celebrate the Queen's 90th birthday with these royal quotations. bit.ly/KlhfGJ pic.twitter.com/xCuDLEnGd5
Word of the Day: simpatico - a likeable person easy to get along with…... ow.ly/8JCgGY
From Blockbuster to Tinseltown: the origins of filmic language. oxford.ly/Sx8ybw pic.twitter.com/lHTzgyR4TC