It's a special journalistic edition of Mailbag Friday! Today's question comes from Molly Eichel, assistant editor at Philadelphia City Paper:

I was hoping you could help me out with a linguistic conundrum. I work at the Philadelphia City Paper and I wrote a blog post about the inclusion of the word meh into the upcoming edition of the Collins English Dictionary. I think meh doesn't deserve a spot in a reference book; it's slang at best and sound effect at worst. A blogger at Philadelphia Weekly disagrees. I would really like to hear your thoughts on the matter, so it becomes a legitimate discussion rather than a spat between two bloggers. What do you think about meh's inclusion into a dictionary?

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A panel of judges has selected the year's most popular Japanese words and phrases: everything from guerilla rainstorm to whispering matron. Check out the list at Pink Tentacle.

We asked David Wolman, author of Righting the Mother Tongue, to suggest a few books about English orthography and people who have dared to modify it. Here are his recommendations.  Continue reading...

In his engaging new book, Righting the Mother Tongue, journalist David Wolman sets out to discover how the English language ended up with such an infuriatingly unpredictable spelling system. His journey takes him from the birthplace of Old English all the way to the spelling reformers who picket the national spelling bee. In the first installment of our two-part interview with Wolman, he tells us how -- as a self-professed poor speller -- he might have felt more comfortable a millennium ago, and how orthographic correctness became so important to speakers of English.  Continue reading...

Here are some great online resources for getting children interested in poetry.

Poetry4Kids

Giggle Poetry

Favorite Poem Project

Scholastic Poetry

Yesterday, our "Editorial Emergency" duo of Simon Glickman and Julia Rubiner launched a salvo against a common usage of the word nonplussed, a word they "wager more people get wrong than right." That opens an interesting can of worms: if a word or phrase used to have Meaning A, but more people now use it with Meaning B, is it time for the Meaning A folks to stand aside?  Continue reading...

"I've been really happy by how nonplussed they've been by the whole thing." -- Barack Obama on his daughters' response to the presidential campaign, People, Aug. 4, 2008

It seems even Harvard graduate/widely acknowledged smart guy/President-Elect Barack Obama doesn't know the meaning of the word nonplussed. He's in good company. I'd wager more people get "nonplussed" wrong than right -- frequently going so far as to use the word to express nearly the opposite of what they mean. As the misuse of nonplussed threatens to overwhelm the proper use, we feel duty-bound to set the record straight.  Continue reading...