Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
A aggravate – Some have argued that this word should not be used in the sense of "to annoy" or "to oppress", but only to mean "to make worse". According to AHDI, the use of "aggravate" as "annoy" occurs in English as far back as the 17th century. In Latin, from which the word was borrowed, both meanings were used. Sixty-eight percent of AHD4's usage panel approves of its use in "It's the ...
The verb affect means "to influence something", and the noun effect means "the result of". Effect can also be a verb that means "to cause [something] to be", while affect as a noun has technical meanings in psychology, music, and aesthetic theory: an emotion or subjectively experienced feeling. [10] [11] [12]
In the English language, there are grammatical constructions that many native speakers use unquestioningly yet certain writers call incorrect. Differences of usage or opinion may stem from differences between formal and informal speech and other matters of register, differences among dialects (whether regional, class-based, generational, or other), difference between the social norms of spoken ...
An illustration of a weasel using "weasel words". In this case, "some people" are a vague and undefined authority. In rhetoric, a weasel word, or anonymous authority, is a word or phrase aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague, ambiguous, or irrelevant claim has been communicated.
Ain't has been called "the most stigmatized word in the language", [25] as well as "the most powerful social marker" in English. [26] It is a prominent example in English of a shibboleth – a word used to determine inclusion in or exclusion from, a group. [25] Historically, this was not so.
In the United States, there have been several controversies involving the misunderstanding of the word niggardly, an adjective meaning "stingy" or "miserly", because of its phonetic similarity to nigger, an ethnic slur used against black people. Although the two words are etymologically unrelated, niggard is nonetheless often replaced with a ...
Dreyfuss' words at the film screening — billed as “An Evening With Richard Dreyfuss + 'Jaws' Screening" at the Cabot — resulted in some attendees walking out at the Beverly, Mass., theater.
An example of spoonerism on a protest placard in London, England: "Buck Frexit" instead of "Fuck Brexit". A spoonerism is an occurrence of speech in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched (see metathesis) between two words of a phrase.