March 4th was National Grammar Day, and one of the events held to celebrate the occasion was a Grammar Haiku Contest, overseen by editor Mark Allen. Language lovers were asked to post grammar- or usage-based haikus on Twitter, and nearly 200 entries were submitted. Herewith, from Allen's blog, the winning haiku and the runners-up, as determined by a distinguished panel of judges.  Continue reading...

We're coming up on National Grammar Day (it's March 4th, as in "march forth"), so we asked our resident linguist Neal Whitman to tackle a topic sure to warm the cockles of grammar-lovers' hearts: helping verbs! But how many are there? And can you fit them all into a catchy song?  Continue reading...

Today is Dr. Seuss's birthday, celebrated in the United States as Read Across America Day. Seuss contributed many linguistic inventions, but was "nerd" one of them? Ben Zimmer investigated whether we owe Dr. Seuss a debt of gratitude for this word in a column for the Boston Globe and a Word Routes followup. Check 'em out, word nerds.

Long ago (in fact, seven years to the day), when the paint on the walls of the Language Lounge was still fresh, we talked about the ways in which sexism is reflected in the lexicon of English, using word maps in the Visual Thesaurus. The occasion was Women's History Month, and now, since that occasion has rolled around again, it's a suitable time to have another look at gender inequality in language.  Continue reading...

As he did last year, editor Mark Allen is hosting a haiku-writing contest in honor of National Grammar Day on March 4th. Submit your grammar-related haiku by posting it to Twitter with the hashtag #GrammarDay. Deadline is 10 p.m. on March 3rd! Details here.