When we interviewed Michael Adams about his new book, Slang: The People's Poetry (part one here), we asked him to recommend the best dictionaries of English slang available. If you're curious about the meanings and origins of slang terms, these are the go-to references. 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...

Linguist Heidi Harley is back with her fifth annual roundup of language-related jokes on "The Simpsons." Click here for the latest cromulent crop.

Is a picture worth a thousand words? Possibly, but if your job is to assign words to pictures, it would be good if you could reduce that number a bit, and perhaps focus on quality rather than quantity. This month in the Lounge we've been thinking about the relationship between words and pictures, while in recovery from a brief addiction to Google Image Labeler. Continue reading...

What made Martin Luther King's oratorical style so powerful? Linguist Mark Liberman of the University of Pennsylvania analyzes the phonetics behind the rhetoric here.

In this anniversary edition of Language Lounge we return to the topic that started it all — sound symbolism — in our quest to learn the true meaning of /oi/. Continue reading...

Rosina Lippi-Green is the author of English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. Now she has set up a companion website for the book, with observations on everything from Ebonics to double negatives.