Writing teacher Margaret Hundley Parker has a simple lesson for her students: Don't learn grammar from rock stars. Here Margaret explains how rock and roll lyrics with non-standard English constructions can often lead students of grammar astray.  Continue reading...

On a foggy February morning in 1983, fourteen people were gunned down at the Wah Mee club in Maynard Alley, just shy of South King Street in Seattle's Chinatown. It was the worst mass-murder in Washington State history.  Continue reading...

The National Book Critics Circle has announced its awards for the best books of 2008.

2666 (fiction)

The Forever War (nonfiction)

My Father's Paradise (autobiography)

The World Is What It Is (biography)

As the recession worsens, we're all learning far more than we ever wanted to know about the ins and outs of the banking industry, ground zero of the financial meltdown. And we're learning new lingo too: the news these days brings word of good banks, bad banks, zombie banks, and even banksters.  Continue reading...

Green, as they say in the fashion world, is the new black. It's the color that conveys a spectrum of happy ideas: environmental health, recycling, alternative energy, and generally doing the right thing. And green business and product names are flourishing.  Continue reading...

On the 133rd birthday of the telephone, Dennis Baron ponders how Alexander Graham Bell's invention forever changed the way we communicate — and brought the word "hello" into common usage. Baron is professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois and writes regularly on linguistic issues at The Web of Language.  Continue reading...

It's been snowing where I live. Okay, I know it's winter and all, and that might not seem like a strange complaint (unless you live in, say, Australia) but I'm in Vancouver -- the wet capital of the world.  Continue reading...