Words. There are so many of them. It’s hard to know them all or to know what they all mean.
We used to have a dictionary and thesaurus nearby to look up unknown words. Today, we make a quick visit to Dictionary.com to confirm our hunch, or to get the official version.
For instance, here’s a word you might see on the SAT or GRE.
Unctuous (adjective): excessively smooth, suave, or smug.
Maybe you know someone whose unctuousness is too much to take.
FWIW, unctuous comes from Medieval Latin unctuōsus, “full of grease or soft fat,” a derivative of Latin unguen.
The greasy word (and good word to know) entered English in the 14th century. It is also the word of the day on Dictionary.com today.
Great Video Content for Word Nerds
Dictionary.com’s YouTube page is full of short videos worthy of attention.
If you are the kind of person who wants to know why and know more, spend a few minutes making the following clicks, to see for yourself.
I love that Dictionary.com is willing to take on idiotic phrasing like “Boys will be boys.” Those are dumb words, and harmful words. As the video above so aptly describes.
With more edutainment like this, perhaps we will experience a paradigm shift one day soon.
Show, Don’t Tell
In the ad biz, we like to say “Show, don’t tell.”
This is exactly what content marketing can do for a company, and do well. Dictionary.com does not need an ad for its product (although an ad would amplify this brand content). The company just needs to keep proving its value to readers and to people who like words.
