As we bid farewell to the strangely nameless first decade of the 21st century, University of Illinois linguist Dennis Baron takes a look back at the lingo that enlivened the last ten years.  Continue reading...

Fred R. Shapiro, the editor of The Yale Book of Quotations, is constantly on the lookout for new quotations that might make the cut for the next edition of his authoritative quotation dictionary. Below, find out what he thinks are the top ten quotations of 2009.  Continue reading...

Last week, members of the Special Libraries Association were asked to vote on a radical renaming of their organization: it was proposed that the SLA become the Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals, or ASKPro. The contentious wrangling over the proposal revealed deep ambivalence about the words library and librarian in the digital age. We asked Stan Friedman, senior research librarian for Condé Nast Publications, for some insights into the terminological debate.  Continue reading...

Jack Lynch, author of The Lexicographer's Dilemma, has a new blog on the Psychology Today website entitled "Proper Words in Proper Places." His latest post explores how the rules of language, like the rules of dress, do not follow any official guidelines. Read it here.

This time last year, David Letterman was making jokes about Blagojeviching, playing on the name of disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Now we've got a brand-new political eponym on our hands: Salahi is being used as a verb meaning "to gate-crash an official event."  Continue reading...

We welcome back Michele Dunaway, who teaches English and journalism at Francis Howell High School in St. Charles, Missouri, when she's not writing best-selling romance novels. Michele has an important lesson for those who teach and study literature: your analysis always depends on your personal perspective.  Continue reading...

Veteran copy editor John E. McIntyre holds forth entertainingly on all manner of issues related to language and editing on his blog, "You Don't Say." Here McIntyre wonders why we're stuck with the term foodie when there are so many serviceable gastronomic alternatives.  Continue reading...