Tamy from 3 Sides of Crazy comes to us from Northern Michigan where she writes about crafts, cooking and home but today she's got her walking shoes on as she guides us around Michigan's Upper Peninsula. *** Hubby and I moved to the upper peninsula Michigan from the west coast a couple of years ago to work on an investment house. Long story short, we're still here, but hoping to return home soon. We have taken the time to explore the area though and have found many wonderful things with LOTS... Read Full Story
Harvard mathematicians have found that words evolve in a concise manner directly related to frequency of usage. The research looked at the evolution of the English language over the past 1,200 years and found that it’s the infrequently-used words with the habit of changing.
Apparently, just as genes and organisms undergo natural selection,
words are also subject to a similarly intense pressure to "regularize"
as the language develops. The researchers quantified this trend and
compare it... Read Full Story
It seems that there are just too many drivers that don't fully grasp the meaning of this sign. Semantically speaking, the two most important aspects of the sign are the comparative inflectional morpheme -er and the word right . I think it is a fair assumption that anyone who has a driver license knows right from left so the problem must lie with the comparative inflectional morpheme. Following is an example that illustrates the semantics of slower traffic. If you are driving 80 mph in the... Read Full Story
Following is a reader's comment on a recent post about paraprosdokians . I've always loved gags like this -- "I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my father, not screaming and terrified like his passengers." — Bob Monkhouse I never knew they had a name, so I did a Google search to find the proper pronunciation. Forvo.com says it's pronounced "para pros DOK ian," which is what I expected to find. However, the droll Brit at howjsay.com seems to have added a vowel where none exists in the... Read Full Story
Grammar is hard; if anyone ever tells you otherwise, they’re trying to sell you a book. Even so, there are some mistakes you can easily make that will cause people to whisper bad things about you when you enter a room. Phrases such as “bless his heart” and “There are programs…” If you’d rather not become the talk of the town, read on and and learn how to avoid some of the most common grammatical mistakes. Also, zombies.
Photo by chaosfish1
1.) Dangling participles
Dangling participles... Read Full Story
A favorite blog of mine documents unusual and creative words that are found across the web. Even the name of the blog ( Wordlustitude ) exemplifies creativity with a word. One of the ways new words are created is by combining morphemes in different ways and by adding morphemes to existing words. A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language. Following is a diagram of the different types of morphemes. A free morpheme is what its name implies - a morpheme that can stand on its own as... Read Full Story
(Image Above: Media Bistro.com )
Who doesn’t love a good Mad Lib? Not you. Not me. Not anyone. So, this week’s Top Ten is here to bring you nonsensical fun! Fill in the categories below, then read on to make your marvelous Mad Libs of the Top ten Movie Quotes. Be sure to comment with your funniest line!
10. (noun); (adjective)
9. (noun)
8. (adjective); (noun)
7. (noun); (verb with -ing)
6. (verb); (noun)
5. (verd with -ed); (noun); (verb)
4. (noun)
3. (noun); (verb)
2. (noun... Read Full Story
Returning to the subject of words and negative prefixes from yesterday - why is it that some words use the negative in- and others use im- ? And what about the negative il - and ir -? When it comes to choosing between the negative prefixes in-, im-, ir-, and il- phonetics and a phonological process are what dictate how the negative prefix is chosen. The phonological process involved is called assimilation. Assimilation is when a particular sound changes to blend with a sound that occurs... Read Full Story
A reader recently asked me to write about one of her language peeves. This reader can't stand it when a person says he or she is "feeling badly." This statement makes her think that the person has a problem with the sensitivity of his or her fingertips and therefore cannot feel things properly. Indeed, semantically, that is what "feeling badly" implies. The proper way for a person to express the feeling of being physically unwell is to use the statement "I 'feel bad'." How can this be when... Read Full Story
