March is National Reading Month, and to commemorate the occasion, Time's Katy Steinmetz points to some great writing in small packages. She also checks in with our sister site, Vocabulary.com, for insights into vocabulary items in the texts she has chosen.  Continue reading...

The Oxford English Dictionary's recent quarterly update added, as usual, as assortment of terms from all over the map. These included ethnomathematics, honky-tonker, honor code, exfoliator, bookaholic, over-under, wackadoo, and the even wackier wackadoodle. But the entry that really caught my eye was bestie, an affectionate term for a best friend.  Continue reading...

In February, Nokia announced a new hybrid device called Nokia X. No, the name is not a generic placeholder until something catchier comes along. It's the official name of the phone. Mysterious and austere, simple yet highly symbolic, the name is representative of a dominant branding trend of our era. In nearly every category of commerce, X marks the spot.  Continue reading...

In a previous column, "The Problem with Punctuation," I told you I'd report back my findings on teaching grammar and punctuation a little differently. Now I have some findings and thoughts I can share.  Continue reading...

Decimate. Literally. Hopefully. These words, and others like them, provoke so much ire in some readers that they become troublesome to use. Critics feel that the writer is using the word in an unauthorized way, that it's being using to mean what it does not mean.  Continue reading...

This is a list of ideas you should give up if you want to become a writer. It's short, but don't assume I produced it quickly. It took me 30 years to learn some of these lessons.  Continue reading...

If you saw the documentary "Wordplay," you witnessed young Tyler Hinman win the first of his five consecutive victories at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. This achievement seemed untouchable... until this year's tournament, when Dan Feyer managed to win for the fifth straight time — beating out none other than Tyler Hinman. Puzzlemaster Brendan Emmett Quigley wraps up the action.  Continue reading...