We'd like to welcome Adam Cooper, a writer and linguist, as our newest regular contributor! Here Adam explores how solving crosswords (both American-style and British-style) can offer unexpected pleasures in wordplay. "Sometimes being misled, at least for a little while, can lead you to the most rewarding destinations," he writes.  Continue reading...

When I was a senior editor at a daily newspaper, I occasionally used to edit a journalist who had terrific story ideas. Much of his work ended up on the front page of the newspaper. He won awards, too. Lots of them. But he was a terrible writer.  Continue reading...

In the thick of homecoming season and with a son in high school, I've been hearing more these days about who likes who, who's dating who, and who's unwillingly unattached at the moment. It turns out there have been some changes in the vocabulary for that situation since my high-school and college days.  Continue reading...

The Rolling Stones Discover America, my eyewitness account of a month-long Stones tour in 1969, became an Amazon Kindle Single e-book early this year, and now Hachette is publishing it as an audio book. When Hachette Audio's editor Anthony Goff and I shook hands on the deal in June, I asked if I could narrate the book.  Continue reading...

I twerking love euphemisms.

Let me explain.

As you're probably aware, the primary meaning of twerk is a bizarre form of dancing that looks more like a medical condition than anything attractive.  Continue reading...

On May 29, 1953, the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and the Nepali Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first humans to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain. Today we find the word "sherpa" far from its original range: in job descriptions and mobile apps, in government jargon and corporate trademarks, in aircraft names and fashion lingo.  Continue reading...

The persistent glitchiness of HealthCare.gov, the website implementing the Affordable Care Act, has given us much time to ponder that peculiar little word, glitch. As it happens, some new research on the word brings its origin, most likely from Yiddish, into a sharper perspective.  Continue reading...