I’ve had the privilege of being quoted or mentioned in a lot of newspapers and magazines over the years, but as an minor-league word nerd, this one ranks as...
A few weeks ago, I asked the people who follow my Twitter account to describe the difference between lemons and limes. My immediate prompt was because I was...
Sarah Palin has been unsurprising in her criticisms of Barack Obama’s credentials and policies, fulfilling the traditional role of the vice presidential...
I’ve long been a fan of playing the dozens , as is to be expected from anyone who loves language. Last night, in a fit of my usual insanity, I thought it’d be...
One of the most useful words that I’ve been fixated on for a while is “retcon”. A portmanteaublend of “retroactive continuity”, retcon comes from the world of...
From the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language has a delightful family tree of Indo-European languages , though I was kinda miffed at the...
Wow, you kids really like overanalysis of imaginary pet languages, huh? The best thing about writing Cats Can Has Grammar has been the responses. Mat sent me...
If you spend any time at all observing net culture, then you’ll have been unable to miss the recent explosion in popularity of lolcats . This relatively recent...
Though I’ve been familiar with the terms for years, I wasn’t sure of the exact differences between a pidgin and a creole. So: A creole is the combination of one...
Erin McKean , frock star and lexicographer, offers some wisdom : You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your...
I sure do love words. And even better, my friends do too. So they make great websites and books about it. Mark made Neologasm , which I am very partial to...
From Dean’s World , Understanding Language: “No it is not stupid, it is not ungrammatical, it is not backwards. It is perfectly valid language, and by refusing...