Content tagged with "language"

Diacritic
Explanation
March 7, 2023
90

“This is an accented character, which you mostly see in languages other than U.S. English. French, for example, uses several diacritics, like in ‘façade’ and ‘café’. Vietnamese uses accented characters in almost every word. I was using a software tool to search filename on my computer, and one of the…”

Diphthong
Explanation
February 27, 2023
205

“This is the phonetic sound that results when two vowels are next to each other: ‘ai’ and ‘ea’ and ‘ou,’ for example. It’s pronounced ‘diff-thong.’ I saw a graphic about sounds gone from our alphabet: 12 Symbols From Our Alphabet No Longer Used Today One of them was the diphthong you still see in…”

Geographic Metonym
Stuff I Looked Up
Explanation
December 28, 2021
316

“For example, if often takes the form of a place name being used to refer to a significant event that happened at that place; or an organization, institution, industry, or concept associated with that place. Examples: Metonym is a general concept of association which takes many different forms. And I…”

Kill
Stuff I Looked Up
Explanation
October 1, 2024
153

“‘Kill’ is a borrowed word from Dutch. In that language it means ‘body of water’ or, more often, ‘creek.’ Thus, names like Fresh Kills, West Kill, Peeksill, Fishkill, usually refer to a nearby body of water. This usage is common in Upstate New York. Oddly, the Catskill Mountains might be a…”