What is a curveball in general English?
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What is the key to good writing?
According to George Orwell there are six rules that all writers should observe. The first five can be linked back to Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage first published in 1926: Never use a metaphor , simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Never use the passive where you can use the active . Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. The sixth rule is a little more controversial: 6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. Orwell's definition of 'barbarous' is brilliantly displayed in 1984 and is centred on the idea that political thought and language control was a sinister tool and by-product of totalitarianism. Why I Write (Penguin Great Ideas)
What is the most beautiful word in the English language?
What makes a word beautiful? The marriage of form, function and sound? The meaning? The etymology? Anyway, here is my list. OK - Alan Metcalf makes a strong case for what he calls 'America's greatest word'. He argues that OK encapsulates the American spirit of tolerance, enterprise, and practicality. Love - the word that features in the title of 12 Beatles songs ( All You Need Is- /Can’t Buy Me -/And I - You ). And 113 US Number One singles. Yes - Joyce describes this as the feminine word and has Molly Bloom end Ulysses with a resounding tribute to it: 'yes and his heart was going like mad, and yes I said yes I will Yes. " Bewitched - beautiful sound, beautiful Rodgers & Hart song, magical idea. Would also enter ‘bothered’ and ‘bewildered but with only five Twilight - vampire fans are banned from voting. Iridescent ( ir-i-DES-ent) - ‘brilliant, lustrous, colourful’ - what more could you ask from a word? Serendipity - the beauty of chance/fate Au...
Where does the word 'dude' come from?
The King of the Dudes (1888) dude, now perhaps most familiar as a slang term with a wide range of uses (including use as an all-purpose interjection for expressing approval: "Dude!" ) Read more: The use of 'dude' to describe a male person is becoming increasingly universal amongst young English speakers. Its origins are disputed but certainly date back a little further than Dude, Where's my Car? (2000). According to the American Heritage Dictionary: Originally it was applied to fancy-dressed city folk who went out west on vacation. In this usage it first appears in the 1870s. Dude makes an appearance in and in Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and pops up in the letters of that unlikely hipster P.G Woodhouse ('the only English characters the American public would read about were exaggerated dudes ' ) The word maintained its cult status, appearing in two classic...
The word for someone who admires American culture?
There does not seem to be an agreed term as you can see from the number of Google references here: yankophile 945 americanophile 716 americophile 233 americaphile 150 usaphile 14 usphile 1 Contrast this with the situation for lovers of French, English, Chinese or Japanese culture anglophile 102,000, francophile 84,700, japanophile 20,400, sinophile 3450 Why is this? Snobbery, perhaps - a 'new' culture looked down on by traditional ones? Or is it just linguistically awkward - americaphile really isn't a pretty word. You might want to check out: (audio) discussion about the relationship between British and American English here . Time Magazine piece on The Next American Century The New American Century Alistair Cooke's America
Which words are beautiful? And which ones ugly?
Depends what you mean by beautiful? Or ugly for that matter. This brave blog has attempted a list of 100 'beautiful and ugly words'. The writer suggests: One of the many fascinating features of our language is how often words with pleasant associations are also quite pleasing on the tongue and even to the eye, and how many words, by contrast, acoustically and visually corroborate their disagreeable nature All pretty subjective but interesting to see that there are far more 'beautiful' words on the list than 'ugly' ones. Full list here: