The names that made the news--and affected our lives--in 2020, from Animal Crossing to Zoom.  Continue reading...

Breaking news! There's a late entry in the race for Euphemism of the Year, Drivel of the Decade, and Malarkey of the Millennium.  Continue reading...

Explore the differences between enhanced and the newer (by about 100 years) more general adjective improved. Is every imperfect thing subject to both improvement and enhancement?  Continue reading...

How often do you see an article about the search for the origin of a phrase on the homepage of the New York Times website? Just about... never. And yet the Times today has a story about the history of an expression that we've delved into a couple of times in this space: "the whole nine yards." Diligent word-sleuthing has turned up a rather unexpected predecessor: "the whole six yards."  Continue reading...

In his latest Word Tasting Note, James Harbeck presents a baker's dozen of reasons why he likes lagniappe, a word meaning "a small gift, especially one given by a merchant to a customer who makes a purchase."  Continue reading...