As Americans celebrate Columbus Day, it's worth reflecting on the complicated cultural and linguistic legacy that Christopher Columbus left behind. There's a single word that aptly illustrates this legacy and all of its contradictions: Indians, the mistaken name that Columbus gave to the native peoples of the Americas.  Continue reading...

Today marks the first anniversary of the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Shortly after his passing last year, Ben Zimmer mused on "Jobs's unique and spirited way with words," from "think different" to "stay hungry." Read his Word Routes column, "'And One More Thing': The Insanely Great Language of Steve Jobs," here.

The Oxford English Dictionary has long relied on "the wisdom of the crowds" to build a comprehensive historical record of English words and phrases back to their origins. The dictionary's latest experiment in crowdsourcing is "OED Appeals," an online initiative to engage the public in finding "antedatings," or citations that predate the earliest known examples in the OED files.  Continue reading...

Here's a project we can get behind: Mysteries of Vernacular, which presents etymological stories behind common words via beautiful papercraft animation. One word per letter of the alphabet is planned: so far they've finished assassin, clue, hearse, and pants. Check 'em out.

In honor of National Punctuation Day, the Atlantic Wire asked "a few of our favorite writers and word-minded folks around the web" to name their favorite punctuation marks. Among the contributors was our own Ben Zimmer. Find out Ben's response and those of some other punctuation-loving writers below.  Continue reading...

Avast, ye mateys! Did you know that September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day? Arrrr, it's true! We've got some suggestions for sounding properly piratical.  Continue reading...

For months now, copywriter/illustrator Ted McCagg has been holding a "Best Word Ever" competition on his blog, pairing off words in single-elimination showdowns. Winners have been whimsically selected in different brackets, ultimately leading to a final round pitting gherkin against diphthong. And now diphthong has emerged victorious. For more on the curious word, see Neal Whitman's column, "Oy, You Diphthong!"