Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from this week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. Here are our favorites from this week.
Remember that once a month we’ll be giving away Wordnik T-shirts to two randomly chosen players. Winners will be announced at the end of the month. And to get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.
Welcome to this week’s Language Blog Roundup, in which we bring you the highlights from our favorite language blogs and the latest in word news and culture.
In taboo news, Geoff Nunberg discussed private parts in public places while Peter Sokolowski explained why we curse. The Wall Street Journal reported on grammar gaffes in the office, and John McIntyre responded (“a farrago of shibboleths and cultural prejudices”). At Johnson, Robert Lane Greene told us about kitchen Russian and baby Danish; commented on commas; and tested a Chinese language learner. Meanwhile, The Economist noticed an anachronism on Chinese television.
At the Language Log, Victor Mair examined PRC taikonauts and the transcription of China in Chinese characters. Mark Liberman pickled a mistranslation at great expense and compared versus and verses. Geoff Pullum noticed some blithering idiocy on the subjunctive; Julie Sedivy discussed some fracking words and the hubbub around bilingual greetings in Montreal; and Ben Zimmer decrypted some Reuters-ese.
At Lingua Franca, Ben Yagoda admitted he was wrong about the cause of a certain comma trend; Carol Saller investigated trucker lingo; and Lucy Ferriss discussed jeepers words and took an infinitives trip to splitsville. At Macmillan Dictionary blog, Orin Hargraves ran from hot to cold, while Stan Carey cultivated some linguistic botany, and on his own blog, mused on grammar in song lyrics and comma clusters and texting style.
Fritinancy noted pride and junk; dark money,“pools of unregulated political contributions whose sources and fundraisers are anonymous (‘dark’)”; and strass, “a hard, brilliant, lead-containing glass used in making artificial gems.” In the week in words, Erin McKean noticed Swirlogram, a type of graph; spraywork, a type of graffiti; and pachislot, “a cross between Japan’s wildly popular pachinko and Las Vegas-style slot machines.” Meanwhile, Word Spy spotted cashmob, “an event where people support a local retailer by gathering en masse to purchase the store’s products.”
Kory Stamper wrote a love letter to English; K International celebrated linguistic diversity in Australia; Slate compared woots; and ermahgerd, Superlingo began investigating another internet trend (previously, LOLcat lingo). Sesquiotica posted on ovoviviparity, funambulist, and rag-tag. The Virtual Linguist explained the origins of bully and kilt. The Dialect Blog examined a new dialect in New Zealand; Canadian and Californian vowels; the British lot; and room pronunciations.
Lynneguist told us about yog(h)urt, while from the Oxford Dictionary Blog, we learned some food idioms, and from Slate we heard about the “breastaurant” business. We really want to go to this NYPL exhibit on the history of lunch, and weren’t really surprised that wine geeks will pay more for a fancy name. Meanwhile, these drunk-texting authors have had one too many, and if they aren’t careful, may end up with a tattoo with a hidden meaning.
We learned 50 words for rain, some contemporary slang words which might be older than we thought, and about a missed connections for books. We loved these literary quotes from The Simpsons, this supercut of Sorkinisms, and we may take up the Rory Gilmore reading challenge.
Finally, we were saddened this week by the passing of writer and director, Nora Ephron. We love her writing, her movies, and these lists she made of what she would and wouldn’t miss.
That’s it for this week. Till next time, au revoir, bye!
Confused about all the terms flying around as a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling today? Here’s a roundup of 10 key words and terms.
Affordable Care Act
“One of the main goals of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is to extend coverage to millions of Americans who can’t obtain insurance today. These are typically people with preexisting medical conditions or limited incomes whose employers don’t offer health benefits.”
“’Obamacare’ insurance exchanges: Let’s get going,” The Los Angeles Times, February 8, 2012
According to Investopedia, the Affordable Care Act, short for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is:
A federal statute signed into law in March 2010 as a part of the healthcare reform agenda of the Obama administration. Signed under the title of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the law included multiple provisions that would take effect over a matter of years, including the expansion of Medicaid eligibility, the establishment of health insurance exchanges and prohibiting health insurers from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions.
Check out this guide from The Atlantic regarding which provisions of the ACA were approved by the Supreme Court today.
Commerce Clause
“Can the federal government require Americans to buy health insurance? Well, yesterday, a federal judge in Virginia said no, that that part of the health care overhaul law is unconstitutional. The legal argument hinges on the powers given to Congress under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The clause is a short one. It says that Congress has the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the Indian tribes.”
“Health Mandate Fight Hinges On Commerce Clause,” NPR, December 14, 2010
The Commerce Clause relates to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in that “Congress claims authority from the Commerce Clause,” and therefore “is authorized to require citizens to purchase health insurance from the private market, known as the individual mandate.”
death panel
“Democrats are right that offering an on-demand counseling session is hardly the same as establishing a ‘death panel’ to determine which senior lives or dies. To equate the two, as Sarah Palin has done, is to utter, in Obama’s term, ‘outlandish rumors.’”
Amity Shlaes, “Death Panel Needed for Health-Debate Hypocrisy,” Bloomberg, August 10, 2009
A death panel is “a supposed committee responsible for allocating healthcare and promoting euthanasia to reduce costs.” In 2009 former Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin stated:
The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
According to the Washington Post, Palin was referring to a provision “that would provide funds to physicians or other health care providers to help counsel patients on end of life planning issues such as how to create a living will or advanced directive.”
individual mandate
“If there were no individual mandate included in the legislation, this would create a situation where people would be likely to wait until they had a health problem diagnosed before they applied for insurance. That would cause premiums to increase and make coverage increasingly unattractive to people who are young and healthy.”
Brendan Borrell, “Individual mandate: A sticking point in the healthcare debate,” The Los Angeles Times, February 15, 2010
Individual mandate is “a requirement by law that certain persons purchase or otherwise obtain a good or service.” The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “imposes a health insurance mandate,” which would “fine citizens without insurance,” says the L.A. Times.
Medicaid
“Retirees who expect to end up on Medicaid, Mr. Kotlikoff says, might want to skip this. Medicaid, which is based on financial need, ‘will end up taking the additional money that comes in.’”
Jeff Opdyke, “How to Game Social Security,” The Wall Street Journal, August 27, 2010
Medicaid is “a program in the United States, jointly funded by the states and the federal government, that reimburses hospitals and physicians for providing care to qualifying people who cannot finance their own medical expenses.” Medicare is “a program under the U.S. Social Security Administration that reimburses hospitals and physicians for medical care provided to qualifying people over 65 years old.” See how Medicaid will be affected by today’s ruling.
Obamacare
“Democrats in Congress are upset that Republicans are using the term ‘Obamacare’ — the pejorative term for the Affordable Care Act — in taxpayer-funded congressional mass correspondence.”
“Super Committee Democrats Announce What They’ll Eventually Cave On,” The Huffington Post, October 26, 2011
Obamacare refers to reforms in the U.S. healthcare system proposed by the Obama administration. See Affordable Care Act.
preexisting condition
“I thought of Brown as the Obama administration announced this week that it would cut premiums for people with preexisting conditions who seek coverage under federal programs created as part of the healthcare reform law. The programs are intended to serve as a stopgap until 2014, when insurers will no longer be permitted to turn people away because of illness or a preexisting condition — that is, if the provision survives legal challenges.”
David Lazarus, “Falling through the cracks with a preexisting condition,” The Los Angeles Times, June 3, 2011
A preexisting condition is a “medical condition that occurred before a program of health benefits went into effect.”
Romneycare
“Santorum comes back and uses the word ‘Romneycare‘ and lists the flaws of Romney’s plan, calling it ‘top down, big government’. This is the best criticism of Romney’s Massachusetts healthcare package – which was very similar to the Obama reforms – that anyone has made so far.”
Richard Adams, “GOP presidential debate in Las Vegas – as it happened,” The Guardian, October 19, 2011
Romneycare refers to the Massachusetts health care reform law, which was “enacted in 2006” and “mandates that nearly every resident of Massachusetts obtain a state-government-regulated minimum level of healthcare insurance coverage and provides free health care insurance for residents earning less than 150% of the federal poverty level.” The health legislation was signed by Romney, who was governor at the time.
SCOTUS
“Some cameras-in-the-courts detractors say that’s why it’s useless to broadcast SCOTUS hearings live: Under this questioning, even for lawyers it’s often impossible to tell whose side the adversarial judges are really on until they rule.”
James Poniewozik, “The SCOTUS With the Mostus,” Time, December 1, 2000
SCOTUS is an acronym that stands for the Supreme Court of the United States. POTUS stands for the President of the United States, while FLOTUS is the First Lady of the United States.
socialized medicine
“Socialized medicine is a system in which the government owns the means of providing medicine. Britain is an example of socialized system, as, in America, is the Veterans Health Administration. In a socialized system, the government employs the doctors and nurses, builds and owns the hospitals, and bargains for and purchases the technology. I have literally never heard a proposal for converting America to a socialized system of medicine.”
Ezra Klein, “Health Reform for Beginners,” The Washington Post, June 9, 2009
Socialized medicine refers to “a government-regulated system for providing health care for all by means of subsidies derived from taxation.” Some examples of countries that practice socialized medicine are Australia, Canada, Finland, and the United Kingdom. Socialized medicine differs from single-payer health care, says Ezra Klein, in that:
[single-payer health care is] a system in which one institution purchases all, or in reality, most, of the care. But the payer does not own the doctors or the hospitals or the nurses or the MRI scanners. Medicare is an example of a mostly single-payer system, as is France. Both of these systems have private insurers to choose from, but the government is the dominant purchaser.
Canada has socialized medicine and a single-payer system (newsflash to those with moving plans).
Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from the week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. If we like it, your tweet will appear on our blog.
Here are our favorites from last week:
You may remember that starting this month, once a month, we’ll be giving away Wordnik T-shirts to two randomly chosen players. This month’s winners are, drumroll please. . .Larry Kunz and Christa Kinde! Congratulations! We’ll be in touch to get your T-shirt sizes and addresses. The next T-shirt winners will be announced at the end of July.
As always, to get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.
On this day in 1903, British novelist and journalist George Orwell was born. While Orwell “wrote literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism,” he was best known for his novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.
In celebration, we’ve rounded up 10 of our favorite Orwellianisms, words that Orwell coined or popularized.
Big Brother
“My, how you’ve changed, Big Brother. What happened to the sourpuss in ‘1984,’ George Orwell’s grim novel about a thought-controlled future? Gone are the piercing eyes and the perennial threat: ‘Big Brother is Watching.’ You’ve had quite the fashion update. I like how you dress in T-shirts and sweats, just like the proles. I like your boyish grin. No longer a tyrant without a name, you’re now Facebook’s founder and supreme leader, Mark Zuckerberg.”
Froma Harrop, “Big Brother is ‘sharing’ on Facebook,” The Seattle Times, February 10, 2012
Orwell coined the term, Big Brother, in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, referring to “the nominal leader of Oceania,” the novel’s version of London. Big Brother is now also any “authoritarian leader and invader of privacy.”
crimethink
“What bothers me about this kind of secularism is that it sounds so much like ‘1984’ with its ‘Big Brother is Watching You’; inspections of people without warning; superior ruling group (The Inner Party), whose numbers are limited to six million; ‘The Ministry of Plenty,’ which actually inflicts starvation; the denial of human passion and the notion it would be ‘crimethink‘ for a couple to even dream about a third child.”
“1984 World,” The News-Dispatch, December 2, 1971
Crimethink, “the crime of having unorthodox or unofficial thoughts,” is another word Orwell coined in his dystopian novel: “All words grouping themselves round the concepts of liberty and equality, for instance, were contained in the single word CRIMETHINK, while all words grouping themselves round the concepts of objectivity and rationalism were contained in the single word OLDTHINK.”
doublespeak
“Robert Denham, director of English programs for the Modern Language Association in New York, says doublespeak contains a fair amount of propaganda, too. ‘We’re trying to hide what the real truth is about a situation by masking it behind some gobbledygook,’ he says. Many forms of the lingo are innocent but some are downright dangerous, he says.”
“Doublespeak terms not based on reality,” The Palm Beach Post, June 21, 1988
While often attributed to Orwell, he didn’t coin the word doublespeak, “any language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often by employing euphemism or ambiguity.” Also known as double talk, doublespeak was coined in the mid-1950s, says the Online Etymology Dictionary, modeled on Orwell’s doublethink.
doublethink
“So we’re left with the Orwellian concept of Doublethink: Holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says he will not reactivate offshore processing on Nauru because it won’t break the people-smugglers’ business model. . . .Yet in the same breath he says it is too harsh . . .As Orwell wrote: ‘To know and not to know.’”
“Doublethink on asylum seekers won’t fool anyone,” The Australian, June 7, 2011
Doublethink is “thought marked by the acceptance of gross contradictions and falsehoods, especially when used as a technique of self-indoctrination.”
duckspeak
“Duckspeak, of course, is the language celebrated in George Orwell’s ‘1984.’ Characterized by mindless invocation and the repetition of slogans, it was the highest form of speech in Orwell’s nightmare demolition of the English language, Newspeak.”
Christopher Ketcham, “George W. Bush, the doubleplusgood doublespeaker!” Salon, February 10, 2004
Duckspeak, “thoughtless or formulaic speech,” is imitative of a duck’s repetitive quacking.
newspeak
“As in ‘1984,’ today’s agents of Newspeak play on the fears of concerned citizens over what’s ‘out there.’ The future, multiculturalism and anybody-not-like-us are presented as reasons for the nation’s apparent race toward political and cultural ruin. Newspeak’s high-priests present topics as black and white, right and wrong, liberal and conservative, in a manner leaving little room for any objective discussions of issues.”
Edward Dwyer, “Speaking Newspeak,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 14, 1994
In Ninety Eighty-Four, Newspeak is “the fictional language devised to meet the needs of Ingsoc,” or English Socialism, and is “designed to restrict the words, and hence the thoughts, of the citizens of Oceania.” In contrast is Oldspeak, which refers to standard English. By extension, newspeak is, in general, “deliberately ambiguous and contradictory language used to mislead and manipulate the public.”
Newspeak also gave us the combining form –speak, which can “indicate the language or special vocabulary of a group,” says World Wide Words. Examples include geekspeak, lolspeak, and adspeak. (More –speak words.)
Orwellian
“Critics on the left hear Orwellian resonances in phrase like ‘weapons of mass protection,’ for nonlethal arms, or in names like the Patriot Act or the Homeland Security Department’s Operation Liberty Shield, which authorizes indefinite detention of asylum-seekers from certain nations. Critics on the right hear them in phrases like ‘reproductive health services,’ ‘Office of Equality Assurance’ and ‘English Plus,’ for bilingual education.”
Geoffrey Nunberg, “Simpler Terms; If It’s ‘Orwellian,’ It’s Probably Not,” The New York Times, June 22, 2003
Orwellian means “of, relating to, or evocative of the works of George Orwell, especially the satirical novel 1984, which depicts a futuristic totalitarian state,” and is an eponym, a word derived from the name of a person.
prole
“Anyway, pureblood prole that I am, I was alarmed to find myself teetering on the verge of poshness because I know what prosecco is.”
Suzanne Moore, “Me, a pureblood prole, one of the new posh?” The Daily Mail, June 5, 2010
Orwell popularized this back-formation of the word proletariat, “the class of wage-workers dependent for support on daily or casual employment; the lowest and poorest class in the community,” which was coined around 1853 and came from the French prolétariat. Before proletariat was proletarian, coined in the mid-17th century. Prole is attested from 1887.
thoughtcrime
“British citizens will be extradited for what critics have called a ‘thought crime’ under a new European arrest warrant, the Government has conceded. Campaigners fear they could even face trial for broadcasting ‘xenophobic or racist’ remarks – such as denying the Holocaust – on an internet chatroom in another country.”
Philip Johnston, “Britons face extradition for ‘thought crime’ on net,” The Telegraph, February 18, 2003
A thoughtcrime is “a crime committed by having unorthodox or unofficial thoughts.” Thought police, “a group that aims to control what other people think,” originated around 1946, before Nineteen Eighty-Four was published, and was originally in reference to “pre-war Japanese Special Higher Police.”
unperson
“Nikita Khrushchev has become an unperson. For a week now there has been no public indication in the nation he long dominated that such a man ever existed. His picture has disappeared from public places. His books are no longer heaped in display in stores.”
“Khrushchev Is ‘Unperson’ In Own Nation,” Lawrence Journal-World, October 23, 1964
Orwell coined this term which means “a human who has been stripped of rights, identity or humanity.”
For even more things Orwellian, check out his essay on new words in English, and these lists, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Newspeak.
While the television show The Soup brings you “the strange, obscure and totally unbelievable moments in pop culture, celebrity news and reality TV,” Word Soup brings you those strange, obscure, unbelievable (and sometimes NSFW) words from talk shows, sitcoms, dramas, and just about anything else on TV.
assassitunity
Jon Stewart: “Remember when you oversaw the killing of Osama bin Laden? You must have known this photo would go viral. You had to think of it as an assassitunity.”
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, June 13, 2012
Assassitunity, a blend of assassinate and opportunity, refers to using the assassination of Osama bin Laden as a PR opportunity. See other opportunity portmanteaus, disadvertunity, hobbyturnity, and talk-portunity.
Baba-Nyonya
Anthony Bourdain: “The Baba-Nyonya are descendents of the original Chinese merchants who settled [in Penang] hundreds of years ago. Over time they took on a lot of flavors and ingredients of their new environment. The resulting cuisine is a truly unique mutation, a fusion of local southeast Asian ingredients and taste preferences with Chinese technique and preparation.”
“Penang,” No Reservations, June 4, 2012
The Baba-Nyonya are also known as Peranakan or “descendents.” The word Baba-Nyonya translates as “men-women,” where baba refers to men and is a “Persian loan-word borrowed by Malaysian,” and nyonya, referring to women, is “a Javanese loan-word honorific.”
balitong
Anthony Bourdain: “What is it about the food here that makes it so damned magical, beyond the incredible mix of influences? The ingredients. Case in point, these cute little sea snails, somewhere between a periwinkle and a whelk, called balitong.”
“Penang,” No Reservations, June 4, 2012
Balitong, which may come from the name of a Javanese king, is also known as the obtuse horn shell; in Malay, siput sedut, which translates as either “snail suction” or “snail breathe”; and, in Hokkein, chut-chut, imitative of the sound of sucking out the snail from its shell.
dressage
Stephen Colbert: “But folks, the image of Romney as a privileged princeling ends today, because now Mitt is just your average blue-collar fan of dressage. Of course that word may sound high-falutin’, but don’t worry, it also goes by the street name ‘horse ballet.’”
The Colbert Report, June 12, 2012
Dressage is “the guiding of a horse through a series of complex maneuvers by slight movements of the rider’s hands, legs, and weight,” and comes from the French dresser, “to set up, arrange, train.” More horse-related words.
free lunch
Stephen Colbert: “But sadly folks, one public union recently scored a major victory, and that brings us to tonight’s word: free lunch. . . .These unionized lunch lady thugs now have the right to free expired cafeteria food, and given the quality of cafeteria food, expired is an improvement.”
The Colbert Report, June 13, 2012
A free lunch is “something acquired without due effort or without cost,” and was originally a mid-19th century term, says the Online Etymology Dictionary, that referred to free food “offered in bars to draw in business.” Related is the phrase there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, sometimes abbreviated as TANSTAAFL, which seems to have originated in the 1930s or 1940s.
gaffestronomist
Jon Stewart: “All that remains is the bloody gaffe carcass to be picked over by our nation’s most esteemed gaffestronomists, who will measure the gaffe using the exact science of gaffestronomy.”
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, June 11, 2012
Gaffestronomist is a play on gastronomist, also known as gastronomer, “one versed in gastronomy,” or “the art of preparing and serving rich or delicate and appetizing food.” Gaffe, “a foolish and embarrassing error, especially one made in public,” may come from the French gaffe, “clumsy remark” which originally meant “boat hook.” The sense connection may be, says World Wide Words, “because the emotional effect [of a blunder] is like being gaffed,” or pulled by a hook.
hot tooth
Joan: “Are you under the weather?”
Don: “I’ve got a hot tooth.”
“The Phantom,” Mad Men, June 10, 2012
A hot tooth is “a painful tooth” in which “the nerve is alive, but badly inflamed.”
kill list
News announcer: “The New York Times reports that the president has given himself the final word in a top secret nominating process to place terror suspects on a kill list.”
Jon Stewart: “Obama has a kill list? Assuming this goes with a marry list and a fuck list.”
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, June 13, 2012
The marry, fuck, and kill lists are presumably in reference to the “game,” Marry-Fuck-Kill, or MFK, in which players list people they would marry, fuck, or kill.
laksa
Anthony Bourdain: “Every time I come to Malaysia, there’s one thing I gotta have: laksa. It’s everything I love in one bowl.”
“Penang,” No Reservations, June 4, 2012
Laksa is a spicy noodle soup. The word laksa may come from the “Hindi/Persian lakhshah, referring to a type of vermicelli, which in turn may be derived from the Sanskrit lakshas. . .meaning ‘one hundred thousand’ (lakh),” or else from the Chinese word “meaning ‘spicy sand’ due to the ground dried prawns which gives a sandy or gritty texture to the sauce.”
otak-otak
Anthony Bourdain: “But [the Baba-Nyonya] cuisine is in danger of disappearing as so many of the ingredients are difficult to source, and because dishes like this, otak-otak, a fish custard wrapped in banana leaf, are so labor-intensive to prepare.”
“Penang,” No Reservations, June 4, 2012
Otak translates from Malay as “brain.” Otak-otak seems to have gotten its name from the fish custard’s resemblance to brains.
selenium
Aasif Mandvi [regarding picture of two-headed fish]: “What is causing that?”
Marv Hoyt: “It’s the selenium in the water.”
Aasif Mandvi [after spit-taking a glass of water]: “Selenium is a toxic byproduct of phosphate mining, and in southeast Idaho, one company loves mining phosphate.”
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, June 14, 2012
Selenium is a “a toxic nonmetallic element related to sulfur and tellurium.” The word comes from the Greek selēnē, “moon.” The company referred to here is Simplot, “one of the largest privately held agri-business companies in the world.”
tostilocos
Javier Plascencia: “You know Tostitos, right? The border culture has made something crazy. They call it tostilocos, which is tortilla chips, nuts, cucumber, salsa, and uncooked pig skin.”
“Baja,” No Reservations, May 28, 2012
Tostitos are a brand of tortilla chips, presumably a blend of tortilla and Frito or Dorito, while loco is Spanish for “crazy.” Border culture refers to culture at the U.S.-Mexico border.
walk back
Jon Stewart: “But of course as surely as winter follows fall, a full-grown gaffe must someday be walked back.”
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, June 11, 2012
To walk back means “to withdraw or back-pedal on a statement or promise; retract.” Walk back may also take on a noun form, walk-back: “Welcome to the walk-back — a strained, three-act political exercise of speaking candidly, then shamelessly buckling under pressure.”
xenomorph
Stephen Colbert: “But nation, I’m not just annoyed, I’m terrified, because if [astrophysicist] Neil deGrasse Tyson points out everything inaccurate in movies and this was the only mistake he found, that can mean only one thing: everything else in Prometheus is true! The xenomorphs are coming for us!”
The Colbert Report, June 11, 2012
Xenomorph may refer to the extraterrestrial creatures in the Aliens movies, a monstrous creature in general, a strange form, or an allotriomorph, “a mineral that did not develop its otherwise typical external crystal form because of late crystallization between earlier formed crystals.” Xeno comes from the Greek xenos, “a guest, stranger, foreigner,” while morph comes from the Greek morphe, “shape, form.”
That’s it for this week! Remember, if you see any Word Soup-worthy words, let us know on Twitter with the hashtag #wordsoup. Your word and Twitter handle might appear right here!
Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from the week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. If we like it, your tweet will appear on our blog.
Here are our favorites from last week:
Remember, starting this month we’ll be giving away Wordnik T-shirts to two randomly chosen players once a month. For June, the winners will be announced on the last Monday, June 25.
And to get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.
Thanks for playing!