Tag archives: synonyms
Economical English: the hidden connections between homonyms
English is famous for being littered with synonyms. Sometimes the number of words we have for a single thing seems almost greedy (not to mention extravagant, hedonistic, decadent, lavish, immoderate, ostentatious, and sybaritic). The dual threads of Germanic and Romance languages that form the basis of the English lexicon are largely to blame for its [...]
Mochy, mizzly, or mothery? Ten regional words to describe the weather
The UK is often characterised (particularly in the US) as a damp and windy island with unusually changeable weather. The past week here has done little to dispel this impression, with flash floods in the North and muggy heat here in the South. Last week we asked our Twitter followers to describe the weather in [...]
Incentivizing proactive synergistic visions, going forward
Have any of you out there received a memo yet informing you that 21 May is National Memo Day? No? Me neither! Nevertheless, in honour of this world-shaking event, I thought it would be apt to imagine how such a memo might read: To: all stakeholders From: Director of Insight and Strategic Marketing Subject: [...]
Watch out for the birdie?
…an accountant found guilty of sending a “menacing tweet” was the victim of a legal “steamroller” that threatened to make the law look silly… The Telegraph 8 February 2012 What comes into your head when you see the words ‘menacing’ and ‘tweet’ side by side, as in the above? It initially struck me as being [...]
Plain unlucky! From hapless hunters to unfortunate accidents
Dog Shoots Man: … Man Recovering from Gunshot Wound Caused by Pet … The hapless hunter was setting up decoys in the water when the mishap occurred. The above Huffington Post story caught my eye for two reasons: after I’d stopped smiling at the image of a dog shooting his master in the posterior (no [...]
Swaggering bullies, strutting models, and parading bands
He marched forward on to the lectern with the possessive insouciance of a hoodie swaggering on to his sink estate. [Guardian 5 October 2011] This evocative description of British PM David Cameron as he stepped up to address the recent Conservative Party Conference prompted me to think about the verb ‘swagger’ and how it’s often [...]
It’s all about the nuance – synonyms and the Oxford English Corpus
There are few words that share an exact set of definitions – it is almost a guarantee that there will be some subtle differences between one word and its synonym. Sometimes these nuances are so subtle that they can be difficult to articulate fully in a definition, and only become apparent through examining usage. Oxford [...]
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