I'll never forget the headline that led me to Cal Newport. It read: "How an MIT postdoc writes 3 books, a PhD defense, and 6+ peer-reviewed papers — and finishes by 5:30 pm." As a time-management zealot, I was hooked. And curious.  Continue reading...

When the US government finally signed a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, I was quickly confused about what the deal was. On the airwaves, I heard that part of the deal would be a 2% increase in payroll taxes, yet in print, I read that there was to be a 2 percentage point increase.  Continue reading...

A Florida correspondent writes: "My boss is obsessed with Strunk & White, and so tells me that I can never start a sentence with 'however' when using it to mean 'nevertheless.' I disagree with him and say that I can start a sentence with 'however' when I mean 'nevertheless' if I put a comma after the 'however.'"  Continue reading...

We all like good writing and dislike bad writing; we all want to write well, not badly. Yet the words "good" and "bad," when applied to any work of art are so much matters of taste that they often seem empty as definitions and arbitrary as categories.  Continue reading...

In his latest Word Tasting Note, James Harbeck presents a baker's dozen of reasons why he likes lagniappe, a word meaning "a small gift, especially one given by a merchant to a customer who makes a purchase."  Continue reading...

The American Heart Association says that heart attacks kill about 1,200 people in the United States every day. In many of those people's obituaries or death notices, the cause of death will be given as "an apparent heart attack." Except, as many a journalism professor has noted, "apparent heart attacks" can't kill; only real heart attacks can kill.  Continue reading...

Last week, lexicographer and Word Routes columnist Ben Zimmer presented his nominees for Word of the Year. Now here is the Word of the Year selection of Dennis Baron, English professor at the University of Illinois and author of the blog The Web of Language.  Continue reading...