Once again award-winning writer and educator Bob Greenman takes us on a journey through words selected from More Words That Make a Difference, a delightful book illustrating word usage with passages from the Atlantic Monthly.  Continue reading...

In theory, advertising copy doesn't need to be elegant or even eloquent: its job is to make us pay attention and take action. But should it adhere to generally accepted rules of spelling, punctuation, grammar, and syntax?  Continue reading...

For "Oops," the latest episode of WNYC's Radiolab, Visual Thesaurus editor Ben Zimmer shares examples of unfortunate search-and-replace errors. (Did you know Queen Elizabeth lays 2,000 eggs a day?) Listen here, and check out Language Log for further reading.

Our resident linguist Neal Whitman has been thinking about the idiomatic expression "call (someone) on the carpet," in the news because of President Obama's firing of General Stanley McChrystal.  Continue reading...

If you are in the ed world, chances are you have heard the acronym RTI being batted around but you may not be able to explain its rationale or be able to envision how this model of "intervention" could play out in your classroom.  Continue reading...