Any news event brings new terms and phrases to life while reinvigorating old ones. Look how the recent Presidential election spread malarkey, binders full of women, and bayonets across headlines and tweets. Forevermore, those words will jog the memory of anyone who was paying attention to the 2012 election.  Continue reading...

Last year, Season 2 of the popular British TV series "Downton Abbey" yielded a bumper crop of linguistic anachronisms. In Season 3, now airing stateside on PBS, the out-of-place language has continued. There was a particularly glaring anachronism in the most recently aired episode: "steep learning curve."  Continue reading...

Flexible and inflexible are opposites, but flammable and inflammable are not. Why is this? From a morphological and contextual perspective, Susan Ebbers discusses how to help students come to grips with confusing words, including inflammable, impregnable, and infamous.  Continue reading...

The Second Amendment of the US Constitution is now specifically interpreted to mean that individuals have a right to possess a firearm for traditionally legal purposes. The Supreme Court case on which this interpretation of the amendment rests came down to arguments over language and definitions.  Continue reading...

If you've been following the strange saga of Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o, then you've likely come across the term "catfishing" to describe the type of prank he fell victim to, in which a romantic interest turns out to be nothing more than a fabricated online identity. The term comes from the 2010 documentary "Catfish," but as I describe in my latest Boston Globe column, it's not the first time that a cinematic depiction has spawned a new verb.  Continue reading...

Some writers go to great lengths to find synonyms for things or acts that they have to refer to repeatedly in a story. They seem to have the idea that this adds flavor and depth and style to their writing. Actually, it can add a thick layer of B.S. and to demonstrate quite clearly why supposed synonyms are not necessarily fungible.  Continue reading...