Today is opening day for Major League Baseball, though the only game on the schedule is in far-off Tokyo, where the Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics are beginning a two-game series. But let's cast our minds back to opening day a century ago. On April 2, 1912, in a Pacific Coast League game between the Portland Beavers and the Los Angeles Angels, a pitcher uncorked his "jazz ball" — and possibly helped set into motion a chain of events that brought the word jazz together with the music it named.  Continue reading...

This weekend, puzzlers will come together in Brooklyn for the 35th American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, organized by New York Times puzzle editor Will Shortz. The reigning champ, Dan Feyer, has been described as a crossword-solving machine. But he better look out, because this time there will be competition from an actual crossword-solving machine.  Continue reading...

Last night's debate among the four remaining Republican presidential candidates in Arizona was clearly underwhelming for some political pundits. On the website BuzzFeed, Zeke Miller gave out grades to the candidates in the form of trendy online lingo favored by the site. Rick Santorum earned a "FAIL," while Mitt Romney, despite being declared the winner, nonetheless was awarded a "MEH."  Continue reading...

In a mere two weeks, New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin has gone from an unknown to the most compelling story in sports. For basketball commentators, he's been the gift that keeps on giving: turning in amazing performances night after night since coming off the bench and propelling the Knicks to a seven-game winning streak. His humble personal profile is in stark contrast to the over-the-top enthusiasm his play has generated, which goes by the buzzword (perhaps you've heard?) Linsanity.  Continue reading...

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.  Continue reading...

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.  Continue reading...

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.  Continue reading...