Despite their name, they’re not a very spooky problem, but they do plague all dictionaries. The Oxford English Dictionary includes an 1887 reference calling them “mere coinages due to the blunders of printers or scribes… or blundering editors.” Imagine a manuscript with a typo or misprinted text. An untrained editor or printer may assume that the word was added by the original writer for a reason, and thus will let it slide through. Only after the work is finally published will the mistake become apparent, as the newly printed “ghost word” is accidentally thrust into the collective lexicon.
One of the earliest known examples of a ghost word is “dord,” which showed up in Webster’s New International Dictionary from 1934 to 1939. According to Snopes, an editor mistook the abbreviation “D or d” — meaning “density” — for the single word “dord.” The ghost word spent a few years in the dictionary before it was spotted and finally removed.
Sometimes the ghost word gets adopted by the public and enters the lexicon. That’s exactly how we got the word “syllabus,” which was originally a misprint of the Greek sittybos(meaning “parchment label” or “table of contents”). The mistake went unnoticed during the editing process, and “syllabus” was being used as a new word by the 1650s.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Inbox Studio. He is also a freelance comedy writer, devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
6 Ways To Improve Your Communication Skills This Year
Whether you have a goal to stay in touch with old friends, or add new words to your vocabulary, we have some easy ways to boost your language and communication skills.
It’s a new year, which means it’s time to set a few lofty resolutions that will likely be forgotten about before the end of January. Look, we understand how hard it is to keep those commitments. Going to the gym every day seems daunting, and eating healthy isn’t always easy — especially on Taco Tuesdays.
Advertisement
If there’s one resolution worth keeping, though, it’s trying to improve your communication skills. The ability to clearly articulate your thoughts or feelings is essential for healthy relationships and successful collaboration. If you feel like your written and verbal skills could use a bit of a refresh, here are six ways to level up for 2025.
Send Handwritten Thank-You Notes
Thank-you notes are a great way to show your loved ones just how much you appreciate them. You could send a quick note via email, but some of the personal touches may get lost, and the words may fail to convey your true feelings. Handwritten thank-you notes, meanwhile, are an excellent alternative. Writing a note by hand takes time, so you can really ruminate on the positive sentiments you want to convey. Say goodbye to impersonal emails and start to communicate your gratitude on paper.
Use Salutations in Emails
When you do write an email, don’t neglect salutations, which can help set the tone of your message. An opening salutation such as “Dear” or “Greetings” can establish positivity and camaraderie, whereas going straight into the message without any introduction may come off as curt or rude. The same can be said for closing an email — writing “Best regards” or “Thank you for your time” is an easy way to communicate respect.
Advertisement
Talk Over the Phone
For all its benefits, texting can be impersonal. All of those emojis and acronyms are handy shortcuts but can fall short in expressing a complex sentiment. If you need to talk to someone about something important, pick up the phone and give them a call instead. Having regular phone conversations keeps your communication skills honed in a way that texting doesn’t. While you can let a text sit for hours before responding, phone calls require quick responses to keep you sharp. Phone conversations are also more personal than a text message, so forgo those winky faces and “lols” and start talking over the phone.
Subscribe to Word Daily
If we may offer a suggestion for a sister publication, Word Daily (a word-of-the-day email) is an effective and convenient tool for broadening your vocabulary. If you’re tired of using the same old words in conversation, a (free!) Word Daily subscription is the perfect remedy, delivering a new word right to your email inbox each day. You’ll instantly start to broaden your lexicographical knowledge with fresh terms that make your sentences more interesting. Rather than say that someone is happy, you can describe them as “gemütlich.” Use “derring-do” when talking about an act of heroism. And instead of noting that something is “third to last,” bust out the term “antepenultimate” to wow your friends. Sign up here and you’ll begin to improve your vocabulary in no time.
Advertisement
Write in a Journal
A daily journal is a powerful tool for articulating and processing your feelings. Putting your thoughts down on paper each day is almost a rehearsal for the real world; the more you can understand your own perspective, the easier it’ll be to grasp the perspectives of other people. A journal also gives you a space to flesh out your thoughts in writing before you weave them into a future conversation with someone else.
Public speaking courses provide a plethora of benefits. Not only do they teach you how to be concise and express your viewpoints in the most effective means possible, but these courses also help you effectively construct arguments that resonate with others. They can even teach you how to analyze a person’s body language while talking — gestures that often say more than words ever could. Finally, a good public speaking course will leave you with more confidence than before, which is a critical skill for leading any conversation.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Inbox Studio. He is also a freelance comedy writer, devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
Writers love the em dash — you’ll find them scattered liberally through books and articles, pushing commas and colons out of the way. When should you use this special punctuation mark?
“Em Dash” would be the perfect moniker for the female equivalent of Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt (hint for any expectant parents eyeing the Summer Games in 2044). But in writing, an em dash is an advanced-level punctuation mark that can be used in lieu of commas, parentheses, and colons. Visually, em dashes look like long hyphens, and they generally take up the same amount of space as a capital “M” — hence the name (that was an em dash preceding “hence”). The exact meaning of an em dash changes based on how it’s used, but the usual purpose is to draw attention to — and emphasize — a specific portion of text.
Advertisement
Grammarians often use em dashes in place of commas to make sentences more readable and to highlight a certain block of text. For instance, “When Catherine arrived at the airport — two hours late — she was told her flight had already departed.” In this case, em dashes are used on either side of “two hours late” to emphasize just how late Catherine was.
When deciding among parentheses, commas, and em dashes, it matters how subtle you’re trying to be. Parentheses are more useful when subtly adding details: “Cameron had a lot of chores (that he was procrastinating on) and little time to do them.”Grammatically, parentheses should be used only if the information within is not necessary to understand the sentence. The information might add color, but it’s not required. If the information is relevant to one’s understanding of the sentence, commas would be the appropriate choice: “Cameron had a laundry list of chores, most of which would be quickly accomplished, but he was procrastinating.”
An em dash is a great choice if the information is supplemental, but you’re trying to hammer home certain details: “Cameron had a laundry list of chores — three pages were given to him by his mother — but also little time to do them.”
In another usage, em dashes can replace a colon at the end of a clause in order to emphasize a conclusion. Here’s an example: “Jenny studied hard for the test and achieved her goal — a passing grade.”
This punctuation mark is useful visually and in writing, but it doesn’t change the way you communicate verbally. An em dash sounds the same as a comma or a colon if you’re reading aloud — it’s a simple pause.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Inbox Studio. He is also a freelance comedy writer, devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
If you’re one of the millions of audience members (myself included) who have seen the new musical film Wicked, chances are, its catchy tunes have been stuck in your head for weeks. Good news: This soundtrack also allows us to brush up on some key grammar concepts, specifically direct and indirect objects. Perhaps you’re having unwelcome flashbacks to English classes, but give me a few minutes of your time. I’ll try to clear up some confusion about these fundamental building blocks of many sentences.
Advertisement
Consider a line from Galinda’s signature song, “Popular”: “I’ll show you what shoes to wear.” Here, we encounter both a direct object and an indirect object — “you” is indirect, and “shoes” is direct. There are a few rules of thumb for quickly deciphering which is which. Objects in a sentence (nouns or pronouns) receive the action of the verb, either directly or indirectly. A direct object answers “What?” or “Whom?” by receiving the action directly. The indirect object answers “To/For what?” or “To/For whom?” because it indirectly receives the action. So, what is being shown? The shoes (direct object). To whom? You (indirect object).
In the song’s line, “I’ll teach you the proper ploys,” the verb “teach” acts on two objects. To decipher which is which, ask these questions: What is being taught? The proper ploys (direct object). To whom? You (indirect object).
Of course, direct and indirect objects extend past musical lyrics into everyday conversation. Consider the sentence, “Mary threw the football to Mark.” She threw what? The football (direct object). To whom? Mark (indirect object). This can get confusing when sentence structure isn’t as straightforward: “Mary threw Mark the football.” However, the questions are still answered in the same way, and the object classifications remain the same. Not all sentences feature both direct and indirect objects. Take the lyric, “Follow my lead” (from “Popular” again). Here, “follow” is the verb, and “my lead” is the direct object. There is no indirect object because no one is receiving the action for something. In the signature lyric, “You will be: Popular!” there is no object at all. Since “be” doesn’t convey an action performed on an object, no direct object is needed. Sentence constructions without objects are actually quite popular: “She ran,” “The sun is shining,” and “The cat meowed.” These verbs don’t require a direct object to understand the meaning of the sentence.
Rachel is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer. When she's not writing, you can find her wandering through a museum, exploring a new city, or advocating the importance of the Oxford comma.
Quiz time! In which of these situations is it appropriate to say “dressed to the nines”? Is it when someone is wearing a fancy tuxedo or floor-length ballgown — or when a lazy friend wears the same stained sweatpants for nine days? If you picked the elegant affair, you’re correct. In the latter situation, it’s time to burn those sweatpants, and take your friend shopping for new clothes ASAP.
Advertisement
“Dressed to the nines” means someone is going all out with their outfit, often in the form of elaborate or lavish clothing. The phrase is believed to come from the Scottish saying “to the nines” — meaning “to perfection” — often used to describe impeccably performed actions. At first, there was no inherent connection with clothing, as people used “to the nines” in a variety of circumstances.
While it most likely comes from a Scottish phrase, how the idiom got to Scotland is unclear. One prevailing theory relates to nine-pin bowling, a popular European game likely invented in the Middle Ages. Knocking over all nine pins with a single ball is a perfect throw, and the Dictionaries of the Scots Language speculates the phrase could be derived from that game’s rules.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first published use of the saying came in a 1719 poem Epistle to Ramsay by William Hamilton: “The bonny Lines therein thou sent me, / How to the nines they did content me.” The exact phrasing appeared in 1837 in TheNew York Herald: “One evening a smart young mechanic, ‘dressed to the nines,’ … might have been seen wending his way along Broadway.”
Today, “to the nines” commonly describes a situation where someone has gone all out, clothing-related or otherwise. Someone in a tux is “dressed to the nines,” a lavish wedding venue can be “decorated to the nines,” and a layered wedding cake may be “stacked to the nines.” Essentially, “to the nines” is a synonym for “to the nth degree,” and you can use it as such.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Inbox Studio. He is also a freelance comedy writer, devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
As the holiday season unfolds, it’s hard not to be swept up in the wave of festive traditions, which is how I found myself mindlessly humming a familiar Christmas tune: “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” I’ve heard it countless times — it reverberates through shopping malls, TV commercials, and holiday films all season long — but I’ve never fully understood what the verb “hark” means. As I was curious about the definition of a word I sing every year, I did some digging and discovered that “hark” is not a word sung by angels — it’s an imperative call to action.
Advertisement
When Charles Wesley wrote this hymn in 1739, he used the term “hark” as a command meaning “listen” or “pay attention.” In this context, Wesley is urging listeners to pay attention to the angels’ forthcoming song. This definition has remained consistent for centuries, originating from the Old English word heorcian (meaning “to hearken” or “to listen”). While not commonly used today, “hark” has been used historically as a literary and poetic device to add urgency and drama.
Shakespeare frequently used it to capture the attention of the audience. In “Macbeth,” for instance, an assassin calls out, “Hark, I hear horses” — a dramatic moment that precedes Banquo’s death. Similarly, in “Titus Andronicus,” Titus commands, “Hark, villains, I will grind your bones to dust,” drawing attention to the importance of the moment. In these cases, “hark” heightens the drama and foreshadows important events.
The evolution of “hark” continued through the 19th century as the term was adopted by hunters who shouted “hark” to their hounds as a command to reorient and pick up a lost scent. From this usage came the modern phrase “hark back,” meaning “to return to a previous point,” as in, “They kept harking back to the decision made during last week’s meeting.” In a more critical context, the verb phrase “hark at” evolved to express disapproval. For instance, “Hark at him. He’s acting like he knows everything!” In this case, “hark at” intends to criticize, akin to saying, “Listen to that!” with an air of judgment.
Despite its transformation over the last thousand years, at its core, “hark” still means “listen to.” While it’s not often used in everyday conversation, its enduring presence in literature and holiday music encourages us to pay attention to the important things.
Rachel is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer. When she's not writing, you can find her wandering through a museum, exploring a new city, or advocating the importance of the Oxford comma.
Imagine if the beloved Emmy-winning Nickelodeon cartoon Rugrats were called “Onesomething” instead — it just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Show creator Arlene Klasky considered that alternative title as a play on the popular TV series “Thirtysomething,” but she pivoted to Rugrats after a breakthrough while working from home with her young children. “Rugrats” isn’t necessarily a derogatory term, but she picked it for its edgy tone over a more neutral term, making it a dysphemism. According to Klasky, the playful name was perfect for a cartoon that saw the world through the eyes of mischievous babies.
Advertisement
“Rugrat” has been used since the late 1960s to describe a small child who is still crawling on the carpet. Even when used as a dysphemism, it’s more playful and comical than offensive. However, other dysphemisms are more disparaging.
As we talked about in a previous edition, a euphemism is a term chosen to soften the intent of an otherwise offensive or crude word choice. A dysphemism performs the opposite role. For example, your father might derisively call a doctor he didn’t like a quack, or you might dread visiting your friend’s dump of an apartment (we don’t recommend saying that to your friend). An old car can be a tin can or a money pit, yet you may need that transportation to get you out to the boondocks or to work in a hellhole. None of these terms are nice, but they are dysphemisms.
Tracing the ancient origins of the term “dysphemism” supports its modern use. It was derived from the Greek prefix dys-, meaning “bad, abnormal, or difficult,” and phēmē, meaning “speech, voice, or utterance.” While dysphemisms are often blunt and at times offensive, they can add flair, humor, and edge to communication — just be mindful of their potential to offend.
Featured image credit: United Archives GmbH/ Alamy Stock Photo
Rachel is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer. When she's not writing, you can find her wandering through a museum, exploring a new city, or advocating the importance of the Oxford comma.
Unless you’re an avid hacky sacker, telling someone you’re going to “hit the sack” means you’re going to bed. As far as idioms go, this one is widely understood in English. But its origins are less clear. In order to better understand this playful phrase, let’s look at a similar idiom: “hit the hay.”
Advertisement
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “hit the hay” was likely coined sometime in the early 1900s — decades before “hit the sack” made an appearance. We can likely attribute this to the fact that some of the earliest beds were just piles of hay and grass, providing a bit of soft cushioning from the hard ground. When someone said “hit the hay,” they were likely referencing the rudimentary beds people slept on long before soft memory foam mattresses were created.
People also needed a way to contain loose hay. There’s evidence going all the way back to ancient Egypt that people were stuffing grasses, hay, and straw into bags for a mattress, and this practice was widespread across cultures for centuries. By 1825, the term “sack” became popular slang among sailors to refer to their bedding. If you were a sailor on “sack duty,” that meant you were sleeping. But the idiom “hit the sack” only gained wide recognition in the mid-20th century. An early printed example is found in the 1943 war diary of James J. Fahey, who served as a sailor on the Pacific front in World War II. He wrote: “I hit the sack at 8 p.m. I slept under the stars on a steel ammunition box two feet wide.”
So, if you say you’re going to “hit the sack” or “hit the hay,” it’s all a reference to how people slept in in the past. Fortunately for all of us, comfortable mattresses found at stores today are several steps above a hay-stuffed sack, even if you do have to fight with your dog for space.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Inbox Studio. He is also a freelance comedy writer, devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
Good Tidings and Feliz Navidad: The Origins of Holiday Phrases
From medieval English to 1930s advertising campaigns, the festive phrases we love have some surprising origins. Here’s how our favorite holiday expressions went from horse tails to greeting cards.
December brings together many traditions and cultures — it’s a time to include everyone in the festivities, and there’s language to do that. ’Tis the season for holiday phrases: Carols, decorations, and greeting cards are wishing “happy holidays,” “good tidings,” and a seemingly infinite number of other festive expressions. Some Christmas phrases come from Old English, while other salutations are 20th-century inventions. Let’s take time to explore the history behind some of these seasonal sayings so that you can have an even merrier and informed holiday season.
Advertisement
Good Tidings
“Good tidings we bring to you and your kin. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.” This Christmas carol line is popular on greeting cards throughout the season, but what are “good tidings”? By definition, the phrase is a way to say “good news.” In the classic carol “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” the line “tidings of comfort and joy” has the same general meaning. “Glad tidings” can be used interchangeably with “good tidings.” The word “tidings” stems from the Old English tidan, which meant “to happen.”
Happy Holidays
The phrase “happy holidays” is a relatively new invention. The Camel cigarette brand is credited with popularizing it as a wintertime phrase in a 1937 holiday ad that proclaimed, “A gift of Camels says, ‘Happy Holidays and Happy Smoking!’” Before then, the expression was used primarily in British English to refer to summer vacation from school. The word “holiday” itself is much older, though. Its etymology can be traced back centuries to the Old English word haligdaeg, which meant “holy day” or “religious festival.” Since there are several holidays that occur in or around the month of December, it’s a useful secular catch-all phrase to wish folks well during the season.
Advertisement
Feliz Navidad
When singing “Feliz Navidad,” you are wishing someone a “merry Christmas.” The Spanish word feliz traces back to the Latin term felix, meaning “happy,” and Navidad is the Spanish word for “Christmas.” The spirited holiday song by the same name was written in 1970 by Puerto Rican singer-songwriter José Feliciano.
Trim the Tree
While you might get a trim at the barber before Christmas dinner in order to look your best, “trim the tree” doesn’t have anything to do with cutting the branches. Instead, it refers to decorating the tree. The use of “trim” to mean “decorate or adorn” was first recorded in the 1540s. The word stems from the Old English term trymian, which had many meanings, including “strengthen, arrange, prepare, or make ready.” A Christmas dinner might also include “trimmings,” meaning “garnishes or accompaniments.”
This common phrase refers to the company of many being more enjoyable than the company of a few. But that’s not the entire phrase. First recorded in 1530, the full expression is: “The more the merrier; the fewer, the better fare.” Essentially, more people may be more fun, but there will be more food with fewer people.
Featured image credit: Ground Picture/ Shutterstock
Jennifer A. Freeman is the Senior Editor of Word Smarts and Word Daily. When she's not searching for a perfect synonym or reaching "Genius" level on Spelling Bee, she's playing with her Welsh Terrier in Greenville, SC.
The humble “OK” became a fixture of the American lexicon thanks to 19th-century newspaper culture and a bit of political savvy from a presidential campaign. Several fads were popular among journalists during this time, particularly playful abbreviations and intentional misspellings. These quirks were meant to amuse — there were no Netflix comedy specials yet, after all — so “no use” turned into “know yuse” and “all right” became “oll wright,” for example. The twisted phrases were also shortened into abbreviations, much to the delight of readers who were in on the bit. So, “know yuse” morphed into “KY” and “oll wright” was “OW.”
Advertisement
Amid this playfulness, “all correct” made its debut. Adding to the eccentricity of 19th-century jargon, words that started with “C” were often swapped out for a “K.” The culmination of these linguistic fads led writers at the Boston Morning Post to transform “oll korrect” (from “all correct”) into “OK” in 1839. This usage might have faded away, as did other faddish abbreviations, were it not for President Martin Van Buren taking up the cause.
During his 1840 reelection campaign, Van Buren ran under the nickname “Old Kinderhook,” a nod to his hometown in New York. As the campaign gained momentum, “OK Clubs” cropped up around the country in support of the candidate, using the slogan “OK is OK” — a play on the original newspaper phrase “oll korrect.” Of course, political rivalry is nothing new, and his opponent William Henry Harrison co-opted the letters into puckish phrases such as “orful katastrophe.”
Though Van Buren was ultimately defeated, the catchy slogan cemented “OK” in the public consciousness. After the invention of the telegraph in 1844, “OK” became the go-to abbreviation to confirm message receipt. Today, “OK” remains a cornerstone of communication — who among us can get through a texting conversation without using it (or the ultra-brief “k”) at least once? What began as a joke in a 19th-century Boston newsroom has become an enduring example of the evolution of language.
Rachel is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer. When she's not writing, you can find her wandering through a museum, exploring a new city, or advocating the importance of the Oxford comma.
Enter your email to receive daily lessons that dive into what makes English so fascinating. Each email is packed with odd rules, etymologies, and the tools you need to be a better communicator.
Sorry, your email address is not valid. Please try again.
Sorry, your email address is not valid. Please try again.
