Late last year, there was some controversy in the media over a new book by Sarah Ogilvie about the Oxford English Dictionary's historical coverage of foreign words. The controversy turned out to be a tempest in a teapot, overshadowing the worthy book behind it. Here, Mark Peters has an appreciation of Ogilvie's Words of the World.  Continue reading...

Last week we brought you an excerpt from Constance Hale's new book, Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing, focusing on the power of phrasal verbs. In this second part, Hale looks at just how productive those "fertile phrasals" have grown to be.  Continue reading...

Apple has just patented page turning. On Nov. 13, 2012, the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Apple patent no. D670,713s for a "display screen or portion thereof with animated graphical user interface." In plain English, that's a page turner®.  Continue reading...

We're pleased to present another excerpt from Constance Hale's entertaining new book, Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing. Here she focuses on phrasal verbs, "the verbal combos that join an action word with a tiny preposition or particle to make a whole new meaning."  Continue reading...

The Horologicon ("book of hours") is a reference book. Its author, Mark Forsyth (who writes the Inky Fool blog), says so. But it is a very unusual reference book — the kind you could read from cover to cover in an evening or two, and would, willingly and happily.  Continue reading...

A publisher of digital textbooks has announced a utility that will tell instructors whether their students are actually doing the assigned reading. Another exciting example of interactive, digital education? Or a new way to snoop on students outside the classroom?  Continue reading...