by Sue Horner | Sep 12, 2022 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
If it’s September, it must be time to add to the growing number of words and definitions admitted to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Dictionaries like M-W chronicle “how the language grows and changes,” admitting new words as people use them in the same way over a...
by Sue Horner | May 20, 2022 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Confess – you’re spending more time than ever online. There are work events on Zoom and Teams. There are photos and messages from family and friends on Facebook and Instagram. There’s YouTube and Twitter and TikTok. And then there’s Wordle and all...
by Sue Horner | Apr 1, 2022 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Have you been swept up in the word craze that is Wordle? My hand is up. Yes, I start my online day with Wordle, followed by its Canadian cousin, Canuckle. Can you call yourself a word nerd if you don’t? Part of each game’s appeal is there’s just one five-letter word...
by Sue Horner | Feb 17, 2022 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The 2022 winter Olympics are in full swing, and so is the insider language. Normally I recommend using words people understand and explaining jargon, acronyms and unusual terms. Announcers during fast-paced Olympic sports don’t have time for that, or they assume...
by Sue Horner | Feb 4, 2022 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
As we all know, the lifespan of words posted on social media is pretty short – as little as a few seconds. So when I find interesting, helpful or just plain funny posts, I like to share them. Here’s another collection of content you might enjoy and might have missed:...
by Sue Horner | Jan 6, 2022 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Just as in 2020, one subject drove us in record numbers to Google and online dictionaries and dominated our lives this past year – that pesky pandemic. This time, as we got used to words like quarantine, lockdown, pandemic, COVID-19 itself and the ever-present...
by Sue Horner | Dec 13, 2021 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
A lot of information flashes by in the 575,000 tweets that flood Twitter every minute. And yes, there’s anger and fake news aplenty. But you’ll also find helpful hints, smart advice, late-breaking news and hello – adorable dog thoughts and kittens and hedgehogs and...
by Sue Horner | Nov 1, 2021 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Merriam-Webster added a staggering 455 new words to the dictionary in October. Some aren’t exactly new (hasn’t dad bod been a thing for a while?), but are newly welcomed to the inner sanctum of the dictionary world. Many did not relate exactly to the pandemic, either,...
by Sue Horner | Oct 9, 2021 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The latest “What happens on the internet every minute” is out courtesy of Domo.com, and oh my, we are online a lot. (Click on the image to get a better view of it.) Every minute, enough people are watching YouTube videos to add up to more than 694,000 hours. Every...
by Sue Horner | Oct 1, 2021 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The idea of love locks is charming. They are small padlocks, often with names or initials etched into them, attached to a bridge, railing or fence as a symbol of love. Awww. While they may lift lovers’ spirits, though, love locks can drag structures down. In 2015,...
