If you're looking for some reading material this Yuletide season in between sips of eggnog, check out some Visual Thesaurus articles from Christmases past. Merrill Perlman explained the history of some seasonal expressions. Mike Pope considered phrases popularized by Christmas movies. Nancy Friedman told us about made-up holidays. And Ben Zimmer revealed the origins of "eggnog," holiday grog.

Christmas songs: On city sidewalks and every street corner... from Black Friday through New Year's... they're broadcast inside and out, they stick in our heads, they are parodied and rewritten, and yet many of us, even as we sing along, don't give much thought to what the words mean.  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...

It's that time again, the annual look back at the noteworthy words of the year. Were you worried about dangling over the fiscal cliff, or did you have more of a devil-may-care YOLO attitude? Were you more interested in mansplaining or hate-watching? Here's a roundup of words that's not just a bunch of malarkey.  Continue reading...

Recently I was in a meeting about computer security where the presenter concluded an explanation with "…basically, it's an example of the Confused Deputy problem." For me, the term confused deputy vividly invoked a kind of genial befuddlement that might indeed result in a security problem.  Continue reading...