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June 2006In Case You Were WonderingAlthough it didn't make the Top 20, trifecta was frequently looked up in May. Odds are, interest was piqued by the horse racing season's triple-header: the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes. In case you were wondering, trifecta, perfecta, and quiniela add up to a threesome of terms that are basic to placing bets on the ponies. October 2006In Case You Were WonderingOne of the words that did not make it onto last month's most looked-up words list was pretext, but its frequent use as a verb must have struck many as odd. Here's the story. February 2007In Case You Were WonderingFor whatever reason, plenty of folks looked up quagmire last month. While its meaning is easy to find, the etymology remains suitably murky. March 2007In Case You Were WonderingOn February 23 (and in the days that followed), the words gardyloo, chalcedony, and eleemosynary received a greater than usual number of look-ups in the online dictionary. Their connection? Read on. April 2007In Case You Were WonderingThe anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic in April, 1912 inspired the satirical newspaper The Onion to its classic headline: "World's Largest Metaphor Hits Ice-berg." In case you were wondering, 95 years later, the adjective titanic retains its sense meaning "having great magnitude, force, or power," but it still seems to be the story of the ill-fated vessel that captures our imagination. May 2007In Case You Were WonderingSoon after Don Imus made the news last month, the words misogyny and misogynist began receiving a significant number of look-ups. Misogyny names a hatred of women and misogynist names a person who hates women, but do similar terms exist for the hatred of men? June 2007In Case You Were WonderingTwenty years ago, on June 12, 1987, on the 750th anniversary of the founding of the city of Berlin, President Ronald Reagan stood before the Brandenburg Gate at the Berlin Wall and challenged Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to "Tear down this wall!" Such challenges are often called "throwing down the gauntlet," but what is a gauntlet, and why do we throw it down? September 2007In Case You Were WonderingAlthough it didn't crack the Top 20, the word endeavor has been getting plenty of look-ups this summer, perhaps because many folks were checking that spelling against that of the space shuttle Endeavour. Why does the modern American space shuttle have an old-fashioned, British spelling? Blame it on tradition. October 2007In Case You Were WonderingTrick or treat is almost upon us, and we're afraid we have some scary news: despite suggestions that phasmophobia or spectrophobia fit the bill, the English language has no established word naming the fear of ghosts. November 2007In Case You Were WonderingAnother word exciting lots of curiosity (and lookups) last month was irregardless. We suspect its popularity traces to a discussion on Tim Moynihan's blog. Moynihan cites Merriam-Webster in his effort to establish that irregardless is a legitimate word. Our response? Just this caution excerpted from The Concise Dictionary of English Usage. January 2008In Case You Were WonderingLate last month, a Siberian tiger attacked three young men in the San Francisco Zoo. As we go to press, the jury is still out on whether Tatiana was provoked, but there's no debating the fact that the grisly event sent folks flocking to the dictionary to look up the word maul. In case you were wondering, this maul has a history older than American zoos; it also has only the most tenuous linguistic link to the mall associated with shopping. Read on to find out more. February 2008In Case You Were WonderingIn the United States, February is National Black History Month; it is also known as National African American History Month. The commemoration has its roots in Negro History Week, established by scholar Carter S. Woodson in 1926. In case you were wondering, the terms Negro, black, and African-American have each taken a turn in the spotlight in American history. March 2008In Case You Were WonderingPolitical talk moved a couple of words onto the most looked-up list this month. That's not so unusual — and we suspect we'll see many more political words in the next eight months. What's different this time is that it seems to have started with a presidential-hopeful vocabulary lesson of sorts about denounce and reject. May 2008In Case You Were WonderingNews reports about a polygamous religious sect in Texas sent folks looking up polygamy and polygamist in April. Combined, those terms ranked at position 35 for the month in lookups at our Online Dictionary. Poly has many meanings — "many"; "several"; "much"; "multi"; "containing an indefinite number more than one of" — and appears as a part of more than 1,300 words in English. Here are a few poly words of interest. To collect more, choose the Unabridged as a reference and type poly* into the Main Entry field. |