word definitions | word definitions
Oct.16.2008
hurdle / hurtle
You’re running like the wind, hauling tail Indian Jones-style through some busy marketplace. You’re shoving things out of the way, colliding into people, and leaping displays of merchandise with a single bound. So are you hurdling or hurtling?
Answer: both.
The running part can be...
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Oct.08.2008
stanch:
"to stop or check the flow of (blood or tears, for example); to stop the flow of blood from (a wound)" — American Heritage Dictionary
"see staunch" — Webster's New World College Dictionary
Funny how being reared on style guides can mess you up for life. I long took as...
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Sep.19.2008
transgender
One of the editors at one of the pubs I copy edit asked me to research whether it's best used as an adjective (a transgender person), a noun (Chris is a transgender), or whether it's "transgendered."
Answer: oy.
Webster's New World College Dictionary, which this newspaper...
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Sep.17.2008
I'm reading Truman Capote's In Cold Blood about the 1959 murder of a Kansas family. If Capote's account is to be believed (And I'm not sayin' it is. It's a great yarn, but the whole thing has a pre-James-Frey-James-Frey quality to it.), one of the murderers, Perry Smith, fancied himself a would-be...
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Jul.09.2008
RedRoom member Dennis Shay inspired this one in a blog comment. The answer's interesting enough to stand on its own as a blog entry:
Can you say "You did it good" to mean "You did it well"? Yup.
Webster's New World lists good as an adverb. A synonym for well.
American Heritage...
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