What is your word of the year for 2009?

What would be your word of the year? Why? The New Oxford Dictionary chose “unfriend” as its word of the year, but that clever choice is not the first, only, or last word. This excellent article from Ruth Walker’s outstanding “Verbal Energy” column in the Christian Science Monitor looks at the choices of Oxford American Dictionary, Dictionary.com, Webster’s New...

Gratitude is heaven itself

A bright college student asked a simple vocabulary question that threw me this week. “What is the opposite of jealous”? What is the opposite of jealous? Generous? Selfless? Confident? I found myself discussing various possibilities with students adding in situations. The simple vocabulary building exercise (create 25 pairs of opposite adjectives) took a more philosophical turn. We...