Words make the world go round and societies function. We rely heavily on words. We use words to communicate with each other, to direct us, to instruct us, to describe something, to name something, just to name a few. Can you imagine how different and extremely difficult life would be without words?
Credit: Innovations in Civic Participation
This month we looked at the different ways in which we use words and how these uses are changing as our world and vocabularies continue to expand.We looked at web tools to analyze words and content. We learned what words are so overused or misused that they end up on a list to banish them (oh no!) We re-examined some words banished at the beginning of this year. We also spoke with a professional “verbivore” about why the words we use matter.
As humans we are fascinated, enamored, and obsessed with words. From Scrabble to Words with Friends to Banagrams we have always had a healthy interest in using words to entertain us.
Credit: Slide to Play
From Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary to Urban Dictionary words and their definitions are something we need to know in our academic, professional, and personal lives.
Credit: Urban Dictionary
From 140 characters to hashtags to word clouds, how we use and display words online is changing as quickly as our twitter feed.
We want to thank the word experts who contributed to our blog this month. They are:
Ryan Stuart, software engineer and co-creator of textisbeautiful.net
Richard Lederer, author, columnist and radio and television contributor
Tom Pink, Director of Public Relations at Lake Superior State University and member of the committee that determines the university’s “Annual List of Words to be Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use, and General Uselessness”
But what happens when we choose the wrong word? One word is all it takes to tarnish a reputation, lose waves of support, or just cause a lot of unnecessary confusion. As we move into June we wanted to explore words further by looking at Word Choice. Knowing how to distinguish words and their meanings is important to us in our roles as consumers, voters, and stakeholders. Learning the difference between words can make a huge difference in all aspects of our lives.
Credit: printwand
Thank you for reading and please keep sharing your thoughts in your own words with us.
Catherine Smith, President
Collaborative Services, Inc.
Recent Comments