Earlier this month, a post by Dan Frommer on Business Insider had this to say about Google, Facebook and Apple: "Recently, all three companies have been making a lot of 'acq-hires,' where they buy a company to acquire its human resources." You read that right: acq-hire. Where did this odd word come from?  Continue reading...

The New Oxford American Dictionary has released its third edition, and in the time-honored tradition of lexicographical publicity, a sampling of the dictionary's new words and phrases has been making the rounds. Some have griped that the list "reads like a list of Twitter trending topics" that is designed "to bait bloggers, who really are obsessed with the Interweb." Is the list too preoccupied with evanescent online culture? You be the judge!  Continue reading...

Looking for great ELL teaching ideas and resources? Check out these sites:

Colorín Colorado

British Council's LearnEnglish Kids

ESL Partyland

Facebook wants to trademark the word "face." The social networker which connects more than 500 million users has already shown how we can all live together as one big happy set of FBF's by forcing other sites to drop "book" from their names, and now, in application no. 78980756 to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Facebook is asserting its ownership of the word "face" as well.  Continue reading...

The Twitter universe encompasses some odd creatures, including all manner of "Incredible Hulk" spinoffs typing their primitive tweets in all caps. One that language lovers should follow is the delightful Grammar Hulk. Copy editor Andy Bechtel has posted a Q&A with Grammar Hulk — read it here.

Filmmakers Will Hoffman and Daniel Mercadante have put together a short video that's a real treat for visual/verbal types, using striking images to play with the ambiguities of words. The video was made to accompany the latest episode of the WNYC show Radiolab, entitled "Words." Watch the video here and listen to the Radiolab episode here.