The world has lost Michael Jackson, but his music stays with us. On the linguistics blog Language Log, Visual Thesaurus editor Ben Zimmer uncovers the origins of Jackson's nonsensical chant, "Ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma coo sa," and Mark Liberman follows up with an analysis of the chant's linguistic accents and musical beats.

With this column we welcome Bob Greenman, author of Words That Make a Difference and More Words That Make a Difference, as a regular contributor to the Visual Thesaurus. Here Bob uses words from the latter book, with illustrative passages from The Atlantic Monthly, to muse on a great love of his life.  Continue reading...

In this excerpt from his new book Beyond Cut and Paste, ed-tech guru Jamie McKenzie explains why having your students turn their backs on you may be a good thing in the laptop classroom!  Continue reading...

We've been talking to University of Indiana professor Michael Adams about his new book, Slang: The People's Poetry. Last week, in part one of our interview, he explained how slang balances the social ("fitting in") with the aesthetic ("standing out"). Now in part two, Adams considers what happens when slang gets enshrined in dictionaries, and how we're only now appreciating the endless variety of slang forms.  Continue reading...

Michael Adams, author of Slang: The People's Poetry, has already favored us with a list of five great slang dictionaries to accompany our two-part interview with him. Now he presents five more must-reads in the field of slang studies, from scholars with a diverse set of perspectives.  Continue reading...