Tag: words

January 18th Thesaurus Day

January holidays

Roget’s Thesaurus is the most popular thesaurus in history… in fact for years it was the only thesaurus there was. Roget was born in 1778 and it was an important piece of work as it gave meaning to words people had no idea what they meant… they were similar to other meanings but with different words giving one options instead of using the same old words over and over again!They are called synonyms and are fun to use. (Yes I’m stretching it a bit here)

How to celebrate – Find your thesaurus. (You probably haven’t used it in years) Create your own synonyms. Just use the words you already know.

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November 3rd Cliche` Day

November holidays

If you like the cliche today is the day to use it. No one knows who created the cliche, maybe it sort of created itself! After all, a cliche is a saying, that makes sense, that keeps getting used over and over again until we either understand what it means or learn where we went wrong. "Haste makes waste", "In the Nick of Time" and "Better Safe than Sorry" are all important sayings we should pay attention to but often don’t because they are too cliche`.

How to celebrate – Write down as many cliches as you can think of. Learn the history of your favorite cliche. Make up your own cliche`.

October 16th Dictionary Day

October Holidays

I am always amused how those of us who are terrible at spelling are always told to look up a word in the dictionary to get the proper spelling, but you also need to know how to spell the word to find it in the dictionary! I guess that will never change. Today is the anniversary of Noah Webster’s birthday, October 16th, 1758. He started writing it when he was 43 and it took him 27 years to complete his draft and publish it. Naturally, it has had words added and revisions made but overall it’s still pretty much the book he wrote.

How to celebrate – Read the dictionary for fun! Try to learn a new word a day. Look at the difference in older dictionaries and newer ones.

October 21st Babbling Day

October Holidays

We all do it, we babble, particularly when we are deep in thought about something we can’t figure out right off. Of course, we all know about the Tower of Babble, when everyone spoke the same language originally but when they built the tower to try and reach Heaven, God challenged them by confusing the languages so no one could understand the other. A Blatherskitte is one you babbles. I could babble about that name! If you are going to babble you might want to look around first to see if anyone is listening, that way you won’t look as foolish.

How to celebrate – Babble away! Try to sound intelligent when you babble. Turn your babbling into a song!

October 16th Dictionary Day

October Holidays

Today we honor Noah Webster for creating the first dictionary, or at least the first dictionary we are aware of. Webster’s birthday was October 16th, 1758. He was always interested in words and finally started organizing them for the next 27 years to create his dictionary. Of course, there have been many additions since then, many of those being items that had not been invented in Webster’s time. I admirer all he did but there was always one thing that bothered me about a dictionary, and that was when you ask someone how to spell something they would tell you look it up in a dictionary. Ah, that requires knowing how to spell the word in the first place!

How to celebrate – Read a dictionary just for fun. Add a new word from the dictionary to your vocabulary every day. Discover how many different dictionary’s there are today.

October 16th National Dictionary Day

October Holidays

October 16th National Dictionary Day

We all know just how important a dictionary is. My biggest problem is when you ask someone how to spell a word and they tell you to look it up in a dictionary it’s a bit unhelpful. You need to know how to spell the word to look it up! Noah Webster is credited with creating the dictionary used in America in 1758. Of course we’ve added a lot of words since then, some that probably should not have been added but just ignore those. If you want to grow your vocabulary try joining the Grandiloquent Word of the Day organization. They will send you a new word every day to add to what you already know. That means that in a year, you’ll have another 365 words to use that no one else understands!

How to celebrate – Read a dictionary just for fun. Try looking up a word you don’t know! (Might be a challenge here) Create your own dictionary using your own made up words.

October 13th Silly Sayings Day

October Holidays

October 13th Silly Sayings Day

Today was supposedly created by the “Queen of Holidays”. I have no idea who that is. “If you are too open minded… your brains will fall out”, or “I am on a seafood diet… I see food and I eat it.” Most are sayings we have heard before and really aren’t all that funny after you have heard them like 500 times. So today you need to be creative. Come up with some new silly sayings of your own, ones we’ve never heard before. But make sure they make sense since this is not “Stupid Sayings Day”.  We can all use a good laugh during our day, maybe now more than ever before. So if silly sayings can bring a smile to someone’s face, it’s been worthwhile.

How to celebrate – Look up some silly sayings you haven’t heard before. Write your own silly sayings. Pretend you are mute.

August 18th Bad Poetry Day

August Holidays

Sure, anybody can write good poetry but for those of us that specialize in bad poetry, today is our day to shine! Since beauty is in the eye of the beholder who has the right to say your poetry is bad!?! What if bad poet critics were the only critics that functioned? Then bad poetry would be considered good poetry and good poetry would be bad! The day was created by the people at Wellcat.com. Why, I’m not sure, perhaps they are the worst of all poets and proudly profess that? And remember, with permission from Wellcat, anyone can write bad poetry! They just have no interest in good poetry.

How to celebrate – Write some bad poetry. Take some good poetry and figure out how to make it bad. Go back to bed and wait for tomorrow.

April 13th Scrabble Day

April Holidays

Whether you can spell or not, Scrabble is a game nearly everyone can enjoy. Naturally if you want to win, spelling helps. The game was created by Alfred Mosher Butts in 1938 and today is his birthday. It is distributed by Hasbro and is one of the best selling games since it first came out. It’s like an ever changing crossword puzzle. You might be surprised by some of the words you know (Even if you didn’t know them before playing the game.) It can last for hours, or you can shorten it by removing tiles. Actually you can invent a new version of the game nearly every time you play.

How to celebrate – Buy a Scrabble game. Make up your own rules, make sure to tell other players what they are. Create a Scrabble tournament.

October 16th Dictionary Day

October Holidays

Today we honor Daniel Webster for his efforts to educate us all as to the proper meaning and use of words. Today is his birthday, October 16th, 1758. It took him 27 years to write the dictionary and I bet it was really frustrating since every time a new word came into use he had to make changes and reset his work so it was correct. You may remember when you were back in school and asked someone to help you spell a word? They would normally tell you it look it up in a dictionary. I found issue with that since you needed to know how to spell the word to look it up in the first place! Today I use my dictionary a lot. It is the perfect paperweight to keep all my papers with misspellings from blowing away.

How to celebrate – Add a word a day to your vocabulary from the dictionary. See if you can even find your dictionary. Study how many words have been added to the dictionary since Webster finished the original.