Shameless Plug for Someone Else

I happen to think the five-day-a-week online newsletter A Word A Day is pretty interesting. I recommend you subscribe. At the beginning of every week, Anu Garg (and his team) post a little essay describing the theme for the week’s words. Here’s what he posted recently:

To dehumidify is the opposite of humidify, but to devote is not the opposite of vote. To take is the antonym of to give, but caretaker and caregiver are synonyms. We add -er and -est to a word to make its comparative and superlative, but temper and tempest are not the comparative and superlative of temp.

English language learners around the world: you have my sympathy. I believe the language was designed as a secret handshake. Wouldn’t want everyone to learn the code so easily!

This week I have picked five random words from the code book of this language. Five^* down, 999,995 more to go. Don’t let this discourage you. Google is working on the Enigma machine to break the code.

^*Or 5000, if you have been with us since the beginning in 1994

Go to http://wordsmith.org/awad/subscribe.html to subscribe. You’ll be glad you did.