For "Oops," the latest episode of WNYC's Radiolab, Visual Thesaurus editor Ben Zimmer shares examples of unfortunate search-and-replace errors. (Did you know Queen Elizabeth lays 2,000 eggs a day?) Listen here, and check out Language Log for further reading.

The esteemed British newsweekly The Economist has launched a new blog all about language and its relation to global politics and culture. Though the blog is newly hatched, its name is venerable: Johnson, after the great lexicographer Samuel Johnson.  Continue reading...

As it did last year, The New York Times has tabulated the words that readers of the Times website click on the most to look up definitions. This year's leaders include inchoate, profligacy, sui generis, and austerity. Read all about it on the "After Deadline" blog here.

One of the qualities of New York Times writing is that it not only informs clearly (almost all the time), concisely (almost all the time), and gracefully (almost all the time) — but that it delights. On almost every page, well-turned phrases, alliterations, similes and word play amuse and delight readers. My favorite Times verbal delight, though, is the headline that contains an allusion to a song.  Continue reading...

Chris Pash, who works for Dow Jones Asia-Pacific, has been using the Factiva news database to track the most overused journalistic expressions. He's come up with a list of the top seven cliches, from "at the end of the day" to "concerned residents." Read all about it here.

This past weekend I was pleased to take part in the annual conference of the American Copy Editors Society, held this year in Philadelphia. I was on a lively panel entitled "Your Grammar Questions Answered," with Merrill Perlman, who managed the copy desks at The New York Times for many years, and Bill Walsh, multiplatform editor for The Washington Post. For an hour and half, the ACES crowd peppered us with all manner of grammar questions, from the well-worn to the unexpected.  Continue reading...