The Dictionary of Difficult Words

You may remember my chat with Jane Solomon about a year ago when we talked about how Dictionary.com had started defining emoji. Well, she’s back today to talk about her new children’s book, The Dictionary of Difficult Words. 

We talked about the long history of "difficult word" dictionaries in the English language, how she chose the particular difficult words in her book, which letters have the best words, and the specific constraints that dictionary writers often encounter (such as  limited acceptable "defining vocabularies") and the constraints she put upon herself.

You can listen to the entire interview by clicking the player above or by finding the podcast on any podcasting app, but if you prefer to read it, we also have a complete (rough) transcript.

Image courtesy of Jane Solomon.

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Do You Capitalize 'God'?

Christians, Jews, and Muslims will all be celebrating religious holidays in the coming weeks, so it seems like a good time to answer questions about religious words.

Do You Capitalize the Word ‘God’?

One of the most common questions people ask about religious words is whether to capitalize the word “god.” The name or title of any specific deity is capitalized just like any other name, so when “God” is used to refer to “the one God” (in other words, in any monotheistic religion), it is capitalized. 

For example, you’d capitalize “God” in these sentences:

• Some Christians give thanks to God before every meal.
• Dear God, please let my team win tonight.

When referring to gods in general, though, or when using the word "god" descriptively, keep it lowercase:

• The Romans believed a god named Jupiter ruled the heavens.
• The Greek gods were always causing trouble for humans.

The same rule holds true for Yahweh, Allah, Zeus, and the names of gods in other religions. They’re capitalized.

Why Do Jewish People Write ‘G-d’?

When ‘God’ is a name, it is capitalized.

An interesting side note about the names of gods is that it’s Jewish tradition to avoid writing the name of God because doing so creates a chance that the name could be treated disrespectfully. For this reason, in Jewish documents, you may see the name written as “G-d.” 

That’s a simplistic explanation of Jewish religious philosophy and rules—it’s not the whole story—but at least now if you see “G-d,” you’ll have an inkling of an idea of why it’s written that way. You can read more about the Jewish tradition here and here.

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Do You Capitalize ‘Godly’?

Hillary M. from Las Vegas wanted to know if she should capitalize the word like “godly” and “godsend.”

"Godly" and other words that start with "god" are almost always lowercase. Occasionally, religious publications choose to capitalize words that start with "god," but a wide variety of style guides I...

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BONUS: LeVar Burton Reads is back!

Today’s episode of Grammar Girl is about something special. I’m sharing a preview of a Stitcher Original Podcast called LeVar Burton Reads, hosted by none other than legendary storyteller LeVar Burton.

If you love words and language, there’s a good chance you love a good story. And this show is full of amazing stories you won’t want to miss.

Every week on LeVar Burton Reads, you’ll be engrossed in a piece of beautiful short fiction handpicked by LeVar himself. You’ll hear fantasy and sci-fi, comedy and westerns, and so much more. The featured stories  come from legendary authors like Octavia Butler, Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Ray Bradbury.

Plus, LeVar’s narration is unmatched, and every episode features beautifully immersive soundscapes that completely engross you in the world of the story.

Season 4 just premiered with a full slate of brand-new stories. And you can jump into any episode from Seasons 1, 2, and 3. Just search LeVar Burton Reads in your podcast app and make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. But first, click the player above to listen to a preview. 

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How You Can Benefit Year-Round from NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month is in November, and many people know about the event affectionately known as NaNoWriMo, but fewer people know about the year-round events the organization also sponsors, including Camp NaNoWriMo—a virtual writing camp where you share a "cabin" with a group of other writers who all support each other's writing goals. Camp NaNoWriMo runs in April and July, and it's for people who want to write anything, not just a novel.

In this interview, I talked with Grant Faulkner, the executive director of National Novel Writing Month, about how the program got started, the program's other initiatives, and what advice he has for aspiring novelists given that he's watched hundreds of thousands of them participate, struggle, and succeed in his programs.

Click the player above to hear the interview, or if you'd prefer to read, we also created a rough transcript.

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How a Semicolon Brought Two Writers Together

Jennifer Miller frequently writes for the "New York Times" style section and has also written novels, but for "Mr. Nice Guy," she teamed up with her husband, Jason Fiefer, who is the editor-in-chief of "Entrepreneur Magazine." The novel draws on both authors' extensive experience in the magazine world and has been described as “The Devil Wears Prada” meets “Sex in the City.”

In this interview, we talked about how the semicolon (of all things!) brought these two together, why they both love and overuse the colon, what it's like to work as a writing team, which parts of the novel are based on real excesses in the magazine industry and the authors' own writing travails, and more. 

You can listen to the entire interview by clicking the player or by finding the podcast on any podcasting app, but if you prefer to read it, we also have a complete (rough) transcript.

 

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Why We Have Both 'Color' and 'Colour'

Have you ever wondered why the British spell “color” with a “u” and Americans don’t? Or why the British spell “theater” with an “re” at the end and Americans spell it with an “er” at the end? We all know that these spelling differences exist, but not everyone knows why they exist. Today, we’re going to find out!

It turns out that Noah Webster of Webster’s dictionary fame is behind many, but not all, of the spelling differences between British and American English, and his reasons for making the changes were as much political and philosophical as linguistic. I was inspired to do this podcast by a book I just finished, called "The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster’s Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture" by Joshua Kendall. I know many of you reading are not Americans, but I hope you will indulge me and end up finding this story as interesting as I do.

Early America

Noah Webster lived smack in the middle of the time when Americans were still trying to form a country and figure out who they were. To give you some perspective, the United States Constitution was ratified between the time Webster published his first spelling book and when he started working on his famous dictionary.

Americans were eager to break with Britain as fully as possible and weren’t even sure that English should be the primary language. Nearly 10% of the population spoke German, so some people suggested German should be our language. Others proposed Hebrew, and others thought we should call our language Columbian.

'Zee' Versus 'Zed'

Noah Webster's influence is why Americans call the final letter 'zee' instead of 'zed.'

Webster undertook his first big project—an American spelling book to replace the British book schools were using then—in part, to settle the matter and convince people that our language should be English, but American English. It was in this book that he took small steps to begin creating American spellings. It was also in the speller that he taught Americans to pronounce the name of the final letter of the alphabet as “zee” instead of “zed” as the British do.

Political Rationale for Spelling Reform

Webster is best known now as the dictionary writer, but in his time he was involved in politics and knew George Washington and Benjamin Franklin quite well. He regularly wrote political essays,...

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Red: Red Tape, Red Letter Days, Red Herring, Red-Handed, and Rubrics

Recently, I was listening to an episode of the Planet Money podcast, titled “Trump vs. Red Tape,” and after the hosts had said the phrase “red tape” for what felt like the 50th time, I started wondering where we get it. 

Red Tape

Why do we call bureaucracy “red tape”?

It turns out it’s pretty simple. In the 1500s, Charles V, the king of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor, started tying red string or ribbons, also known as “tape,” around administrative documents that were especially important and needed quick attention. It worked well, and the practice quickly spread to other royal courts throughout Europe. (You may remember in the “Duck Tape or Duct Tape” episode we also talked about strips of cloth being called “tape.”)

You can think of the first example in the Oxford English Dictionary, from 1658, as foreshadowing how red tape would come to be something of a problem because it’s about a red-taped bundle being lost:

A Little bundle of Papers tied with a red Tape, were lost on Friday last was a seven night, between Worcester-house and Lincolns-Inn.

Whoever those belonged to was already having his or her project derailed by a problem with red tape! Or at least related to a red-taped bundle.

“Red tape” has been used to describe cumbersome bureaucracy since the 1700s, and I particularly like this example from “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens (1850):

Britannia, that unfortunate female, is always before me, like a trussed fowl: skewered through and through with office-pens, and bound hand and foot with red tape.

And...

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