Word Smarts

Some abbreviations are obvious — you type “lol” instead of “laughing out loud,” for example, and use “Tbsp.,” “tsp.,” and “c.” in a recipe that calls for tablespoons, teaspoons, and cups. You might even know the difference between acronyms (abbreviations that are said as a word, such as NASA) and initialisms (abbreviations pronounced with individual letters, such as FBI)....

You’ve probably heard the fanciful phrases “a murder of crows,” “a conspiracy of lemurs,” or even better, “a flamboyance of flamingos.” These are known as terms of venery — collective nouns that refer to groups of animals. When outside of the animal kingdom, there are colle...

Language can get complicated when we travel across the pond, despite the prevalence of English on both sides of the Atlantic. For American travelers, underwear suddenly becomes pants, a car’s trunk is called a boot, and an apartment is a flat. It can all be a little confusing and potentially embarrassing. And when it comes to food, more problems can arise. French fries ar...

The word “excited” is English’s go-to word to convey energy, enthusiasm, or eagerness. It first appeared in the 1650s in a physical sense, meaning “magnetically or ele...

Transition words and phrases — such as “also,” “however,” and “in addition” — form a lexical bridge between ideas. They help readers follow contrast, agreement, cause and effect, examples, sequence, conclusions, and more. But some transitions a...