Want to insult someone in Japanese? Try misokakku ('scum of soya paste'). In Polish, try motyla noga ('butterfly's leg'), and in Turkish, muhallebi çocuğu ('child of pudding'). These and hundreds of other colorful put-downs from around the world can be found in the delightful new book, Uglier Than a Monkey's Armpit by Stephen Dodson and Dr. Robert Vanderplank. We spoke about the book with Dodson, known to many language lovers by his nom de blog, Languagehat. Continue reading...

Last week, in part one of our interview with author Paul Dickson, we talked about the work that went into the new edition of his Dickson Baseball Dictionary — a thousand-page monument to baseball's bottomless linguistic riches. Now in part two, Dickson discusses the diverse influences on the language of baseball, and how the sport has become a metaphorical source in politics and elsewhere. Continue reading...

As Major League Baseball heads into the All-Star break, we're taking advantage of the mid-season breather to think about the rich language of baseball. We talked to Paul Dickson, the sport's great lexicographer, about the monumental Dickson Baseball Dictionary. Recently published in its third edition, the dictionary has grown into a thousand-page tome of unprecedented breadth and scope. In the first part of our two-part interview, Dickson explains how his dictionary encompasses the whole history of baseball, from the early days of "protoball" to the latest statistical advances. Continue reading...

We've been talking to University of Indiana professor Michael Adams about his new book, Slang: The People's Poetry. Last week, in part one of our interview, he explained how slang balances the social ("fitting in") with the aesthetic ("standing out"). Now in part two, Adams considers what happens when slang gets enshrined in dictionaries, and how we're only now appreciating the endless variety of slang forms. Continue reading...

In his new book, Slang: The People's Poetry, Indiana University English professor Michael Adams tackles the tough question: what is the nature of slang? Adams, also the author of Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon, looks beyond dictionary definitions of slang to examine the fascinating interplay of social and aesthetic qualities in "the poetry of everyday speech." In this first of a two-part interview, Adams explains how the linguistic practice of slang balances the social and the aesthetic, and considers what directions slang might take in the future. Continue reading...

Mayor Richard M. Daley, Jr., has proclaimed today, William Shakespeare's 445th birthday, Talk Like Shakespeare Day. (Or should that read, "Mayor Richard II hath proclaimed"?) But as University of Illinois linguist Dennis Baron points out, we don't actually know how Shakespeare talked. Continue reading...

While most of us view April 15th as the day the tax man cometh (and our income goeth), it marked a more auspicious occasion in 1755. That was the day Samuel Johnson published his massive two-volume, 42,773-word dictionary of the English language. Mim Harrison, founding editor of Levenger Press, takes a look back. Continue reading...