Word

In linguistics, a word is the smallest element that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content (with literal or practical meaning). This contrasts deeply with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own. A word may consist of a single morpheme (for example: oh!, rock, red, quick, run, expect), or several (rocks, redness, quickly, running, unexpected), whereas a morpheme may not be able to stand on its own as a word (in the words just mentioned, these are -s, -ness, -ly, -ing, un-, -ed). A complex word will typically include a root and one or more affixes (rock-s, red-ness, quick-ly, run-ning, un-expect-ed), or more than one root in a compound (black-board, rat-race). Words can be put together to build larger elements of language, such as phrases (a red rock), clauses (I threw a rock), and sentences (He threw a rock too, but he missed).

The term word may refer to a spoken word or to a written word, or sometimes to the abstract concept behind either. Spoken words are made up of units of sound called phonemes, and written words of symbols called graphemes, such as the letters of the English alphabet.

Dolch word list

The Dolch word list is a list of frequently used English words compiled by Edward William Dolch, a major proponent of the "whole-word" method of beginning reading instruction. The list was prepared in 1936 and was originally published in his book Problems in Reading in 1948.

Dolch compiled the list based on children's books of his era, which is why nouns such as "kitty" and "Santa Claus" appear on the list instead of more high-frequency words. The list contains 220 "service words" that have to be easily recognized in order to achieve reading fluency in the English language. The compilation excludes nouns, which comprise a separate 95-word list. Between 50% and 75% of all words used in schoolbooks, library books, newspapers, and magazines are a part of the Dolch basic sight word vocabulary.

These lists of words are still assigned for memorization in American elementary schools. Although most of the 220 Dolch words are phonetic, children are sometimes told that they can't be "sounded out" using common sound-to-letter implicit phonics patterns and have to be learned by sight; hence the alternative term, "sight word". The list is divided according to the grades in which it was intended that children would memorize these words.

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is a word processor developed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS (1983), Apple Macintosh running Mac OS (1985), AT&T Unix PC (1985), Atari ST (1988), OS/2 (1989), Microsoft Windows (1989) and SCO Unix (1994). Commercial versions of Word are licensed as a standalone product or as a component of Microsoft Office, Windows RT or the discontinued Microsoft Works suite. Microsoft Word Viewer and Office Online are Freeware editions of Word with limited features.

History

Origins and growth

In 1981, Microsoft hired Charles Simonyi, the primary developer of Bravo, the first GUI word processor, which was developed at Xerox PARC. Simonyi started work on a word processor called Multi-Tool Word and soon hired Richard Brodie, a former Xerox intern, who became the primary software engineer.

Microsoft announced Multi-Tool Word for Xenix and MS-DOS in 1983. Its name was soon simplified to Microsoft Word. Free demonstration copies of the application were bundled with the November 1983 issue of PC World, making it the first to be distributed on-disk with a magazine. That year Microsoft demonstrated Word running on Windows.

Meet the Beatles!

Meet the Beatles! is the second Beatles album released in the United States. It was the first US Beatles album to be issued by Capitol Records, on 20 January 1964 in both mono and stereo formats. It topped the popular album chart on 15 February 1964 and remained at number one for eleven weeks before being replaced by The Beatles' Second Album. The cover featured Robert Freeman's portrait used in the United Kingdom for With the Beatles, with a blue tint added to the original stark black-and-white photograph.

Background

After constantly rejecting requests by both Brian Epstein and George Martin to release Beatles records in the United States, in November 1963 EMI label head Sir Joseph Lockwood sent a deputy to Los Angeles ordering Capitol Records to commence releasing and promoting Beatles product in the United States. Despite the "first album" claim on its cover, ten days prior to its release Vee-Jay Records of Chicago beat Capitol to the punch with the release of the Beatles' American debut album Introducing... The Beatles, which had been delayed for release for various reasons since the previous summer. Perhaps as a result of the Vee-Jay release, Liberty Music Shops advertised in the New York Times of 12 January 1964 that Meet the Beatles! was available for purchase, an ad not authorised by Capitol.

Little Mix

Little Mix are a British girl group formed in 2011, consisting of members Jade Thirlwall, Perrie Edwards, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, and Jesy Nelson. They were formed exclusively for the eighth series of The X Factor in 2011 and became the first, and so far, only group to win the competition. Following their victory, they signed with Simon Cowell's record label Syco Music and released a cover of Damien Rice's "Cannonball" as their winner's single.

Little Mix released their debut album DNA on 19 November 2012. It charted in the top 5 in eight countries, including number two in the UK and number four on the US Billboard 200. This made Little Mix the first girl group since The Pussycat Dolls to reach the U.S. top 5 with their debut album, as well as earning the highest debut U.S. chart position by a British girl group, breaking the record previously held by the Spice Girls, whose 1996 debut Spice debuted at number five. In 2015, they won Breakout Artist at the Teen Choice Awards in Los Angeles.