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The city of Providence, RI is embarking on a bold initiative to narrow the "word gap": young children in families of lower socioeconomic status tend to hear fewer words in their home environment than higher-income counterparts, leading to inequalities in academic success when they enter school. Providence has won a $5 million grant to address this problem by means of a high-tech vocabulary intervention program, as our own Ben Zimmer writes in his latest Boston Globe column. Continue reading...

Writing for Vulture, "the first in a weekly series of six essays looking at hip-hop's recent past, thinking about its distant past, and wondering about the possibility of a future," The Roots' Questlove uses the word trivial in such a knowledgeable and cool way we had to offer up a shout-out. Continue reading...

Isn't "Don" is that guy from accounting? Does "gay apparel" mean I think it does? And what are the cattle doing again? Just in time for Christmas, clear up carol confusion. Continue reading...

Where does your school stack up on the Vocab Bowl leaderboards? Check out the latest highlights and shoutouts. Continue reading...

Stan Carey, a professional editor from Ireland, writes:

We think of balance as a good thing, associating it with poise, equilibrium, evenness and harmony, as stability in unpredictable circumstances or as a healthy mix of disparate elements. It's a versatile metaphor. We try to balance our lives by living a balanced lifestyle, holding balanced views and following, on balance, a balanced diet. We balance work and play, overtime and downtime, business and pleasure. Mostly business: we balance our books, accounts, loans, budgets and balance sheets. Continue reading...

If someone is complicit, they're guilty of helping someone commit a crime or misdeed. If they're complacent, they're guilty of letting something happen even if they have the power to intervene or stop it. A complaisant person, on the other hand, is only guilty of one thing: being a people pleaser. Continue reading...

Where does your school stack up on the Vocab Bowl leaderboards? Check out the latest highlights and shoutouts. Continue reading...

If there's one thing that dictionary publishers have learned, it's that announcing new words added to their latest editions is good for generating some media attention — and also generating public hand-wringing over what the new entries say about the state of our society and our language. Continue reading...

When a graduating class sits down to listen to its graduation speaker, graduates are looking for more than everyday advice. After all, the speaker is very accomplished in their field, possibly famous, and they've been out in the real world and conquered it. What the audience is looking for, and what the speaker is trying to deliver, is a few nuggets of wisdom that will break through the noise of the the day and stay with the graduate forever. Learn this list of sixteen words that help advance the three common themes that emerged among the graduation speeches of 2016: freedom, success and failure. Continue reading...