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Articles about Language
Word RoutesExploring the pathways of our lexicon
"Downton Abbey": Tracking the Anachronisms
Does the show get the language of the era right?
Are you hooked on "Downton Abbey"? The second season of the British period drama has been airing in the U.S. on PBS, and it's been an addictive treat for Anglophiles. But just how accurate is the language used on the show? Though it mostly remains true to its post-Edwardian setting, at times the talk is a bit anachronistic.
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Word RoutesExploring the pathways of our lexicon
"Not to Put Too Fine a Point Upon It": How Dickens Helped Shape the Lexicon
With the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens approaching (get your party hats ready for February 7th!), it's a good time to gauge the enormous impact he had on the English language. By many accounts he was the most widely read author of the Victorian era, and no writer since has held a candle to him in terms of popularity, prolificness, and influence in spreading new forms of the language — both highbrow and lowbrow.
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Merrill Perlman looks at the way that the "drink/drank/drunk" verb paradigm is changing, and advises you how to derive "drunk" (but please, don't drive drunk).
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Dept. of Word Lists
Les West Side Misérables
Navigating the parking woes of Manhattan, through a web of words.
Once again award-winning writer and educator Bob Greenman takes us on a journey through words selected from More Words That Make a Difference, a delightful book illustrating word usage with passages from the Atlantic Monthly. Here Bob finds himself navigating the seamy underbelly of Manhattan parking.
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My friend Laura knows four languages plus "bits and pieces" of six others. That's impressive, but it's not quite in the same league as folks who pick up languages the way George Clooney picks up starlets: with frightening ease. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a lot written, in academic or popular literature, on hyperpolyglots: people who know not just two or three languages, but six or ten or twenty.
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Word RoutesExploring the pathways of our lexicon
"Occupy" Named 2011 Word of the Year
Runners-up included "FOMO" (fear of missing out) and "humblebrag."
As the selection of the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year approached, a certain air of inevitability had begun to surround occupy, the word revitalized by the Occupy protest movement. And sure enough, when the assembled throngs met in Portland, Oregon, where the ADS held its annual meeting in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America, occupy emerged victorious as the Word of 2011.
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Word RoutesExploring the pathways of our lexicon
Now Presenting: The Nominees for the 2011 Word of the Year
Greetings from Portland, Oregon, where the American Dialect Society is having its annual conference. As chair of the New Words Committee, I had the honor of presiding over the nominating session for the Word of the Year. On Friday evening, winners will be selected from the different categories, and then nominations will be made for the overall category of Word of the Year. What do you think the category winners should be, and what should be crowned the Word of 2011?
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