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Two weeks ago, the British writer Matthew Engel set off a trans-Atlantic ruckus by writing an opinion piece for the BBC online magazine entitled, "Why Do Some Americanisms Irritate People?" Engel's piece, along with a followup of reader peeves, attracted the attention of American language watchers. Lexicographer Grant Barrett had some pointed criticisms for Engel, which the BBC ran in diluted fashion. Here we present Barrett's unexpurgated response to Engel. Continue reading...

Though I became an editor partly because I enjoy finding fault in the work of others, I have on occasion tried to help my fellow man and woman right some of the more popular wrongs perpetrated against the language. Continue reading...

In the latest quarterly update to the Oxford English Dictionary, one entry in particular has attracted attention: tweet, previously defined only as the chirping of birds, has been expanded to refer to 140-character Twitter updates as well. The OED loosened its usual "ten year rule" to let this newcomer in. Continue reading...

Edward Snowden's leaking of National Security Agency information has put the term whistleblower back in the news. Since the early 1970s, whistleblower has come to be seen as a positive term, but before that it had been decidedly negative for many decades. Continue reading...

In his latest monthly batch of under-the-radar euphemisms, Mark Peters illuminates why the care of "post-health professionals" might be necessary after someone is sent on a "trip to Belize." Continue reading...

We're all aflutter in the Lounge this month, and hope that what we're crowing about doesn't stick in anyone's craw. Continue reading...

This month we sweep away the cobwebs in the Poetry Corner to spend some time with a poem just over a hundred years old that still speaks loud and clear today. Continue reading...

For today's Mailbag Friday, we hear from Barbara Z. of Norfolk, VA. She writes: "On the radio I was listening to the beginning of "The Thomas Jefferson Hour" in which Clay Jenkinson speaks as if he were Jefferson. I heard him say the following:

'I happen to live in the first great era when books were widespreadly available...'

"Widespreadly? That one is new to me!" Continue reading...

In a recent interview on the Voice of America radio program Wordmaster (a show that seeks to explain the vagaries of American English to an international audience), I was asked about a number of terms relating to the U.S. presidential campaign. We talked about red states (leaning Republican), blue states (leaning Democratic), and purple states (somewhere in between), a topic I discussed on Word Routes after the untimely passing of Tim Russert, who helped to popularize the terms in the 2000 election. But we also covered some earlier American expressions to describe "toss-up" states that predate the red/blue/purple color scheme: battleground states and swing states. Here's some extra historical background that I wasn't able to include in the brief interview. Continue reading...