Last week, President Barack Obama sent Americans running to the dictionary when he called Democrats opposing his compromise on tax cuts "sanctimonious."  Continue reading...

This weekend, the movie "The King's Speech" gets its nationwide release in the United States, and it's already getting talked about as a front-runner for the Oscars. It has also received a great deal of buzz in the speech therapy community for its sensitive and credible depiction of King George VI's speech impediment and the methods that his therapist Lionel Logue used to overcome it. I take a look at the movie and the real-life story in my latest On Language column, appearing in the Oscars issue of the New York Times Magazine.  Continue reading...

The latest movie installment of C.S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia" is in the theaters, and Jeremy Marshall, a researcher for the Oxford English Dictionary, celebrates by digging into Narnia's fantastic world of dryads, boggles, and orknies. Read Marshall's post on OUPblog here.

Writing offers many advantages as a medium for thought. Writing can be accurate: true in detail to fact and nuance; versatile: no subject is beyond its grasp; imperishable: first editions return in time to dust, but texts can be reprinted; economical: a slim volume can hold a treasury of ideas.  Continue reading...

Even the most kind and gentle soul can probably think of dozens of people to loathe, despise, disrespect, scorn, condemn, resent, pooh-pooh, or simply hold in contempt — the unkindest cuddle of all. But it’s difficult to discuss the objects of our hatred in language that captures the despicable-ness of the named while keeping the namer clean of the mud being slung.  Continue reading...

Michele Dunaway, a teacher of English and journalism, writes: "In our haste to have students prep for standardized tests, English education has left behind a very important area: writing the letter."  Continue reading...

Idioms can act as roadblocks and detours on the road to learning English — for ELL students and native speakers alike. In this "Idiom Workout," we chose some idioms that can be found in the Visual Thesaurus database and that have "idiom cousins" with the same starter words (i.e., get the..., in a..., on the...).  Continue reading...