We gather in the poetry corner of the Lounge this month to spend some time with a good old-fashioned poem written back in the day when rhyme and meter were an expected part of the package. Along the way, we marvel at the staying power of a few sturdy English words.  Continue reading...

In our recent "Word Count" column, we featured Pam Nelson, veteran newspaper copy editor and author of the Triangle Grammar Guide blog. Last we she recommended blogs, this week she recommends this invaluable -- and exhaustive -- list of grammar and usage websites. Go Pam!

Capital Community College's Guide to Grammar and Writing

Jack Lynch's Guide to Grammar and Writing

The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University

The Tongue Untied, a guide to grammar, punctuation and style for journalists

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Lexicographer Jonathon Green is the editor of Cassell's Dictionary of Slang and the world's foremost authority on this rather rich subject. Here he argues the rationale behind his particular bailiwick:

There are, in round figures, some 100,000 words and phrases in the slang vocabulary. That's half a millennium's coinage, of course, and it's not just British English.

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"Fun" and "grammar" in the same sentence? These books make learning grammar a blast. Teachers of the world, rejoice!

Hot Fudge Monday by Randy Larson

DownWRITE Funny by Randy Larson

Comic-Strip Grammar by Dan Greenberg

Awesome Hands-on Activities For Teaching Grammar by Sasan Van Zile

The fact that I've written anything at all astounds me. I certainly didn't end up being a writer on purpose.

When I was a teenager (in the sixties), I wanted to be a famous artist -- the mysterious, dramatic type hidden away in a loft in NYC. Problem was, I didn't have any talent. So I became a second-grade teacher in a tiny rural town in northeastern New York. After thirty-three years, I retired, thinking I'd spend the rest of my life doing not a whole lot. That goes flat fast. I tried passing the time by refinishing furniture. No fun at all. A friend and I went into "business" making and selling little girls' smocked dresses. She smocked and I sold. It was a hoot for me but not for her. Then my son (a college senior at the time) won a national writing competition sponsored by the Kennedy Center. I thought maybe I could write something.

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Check out a word sleuth in action: See how this lexicographer, who writes the Language Hat blog, answers the question, "why is that there is an 'oldfangled' and a 'newfangled' but no 'fangled'?" Click here for the response.

Chris Lehman is the principal of a public high school in Philadelphia called the Science Leadership Academy. It's a brand new progressive school that just opened its doors to 110 ninth graders in September. What's so progressive about it? For starters, each kid gets a laptop -- but no textbooks to take home. And even more important, says Chris, who writes the respected blog Practical Theory, is the guiding philosophy of the school: Something he calls "21st century learning." Chris explains:  Continue reading...