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...

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.

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.

Mike Vuolo, a producer for the NPR show "On the Media," has started a new podcast about language called "Lexicon Valley." For his first installment, he chats with OTM host Bob Garfield about the history of the curious "rule" against ending a sentence in a preposition. Slate is hosting the podcast, which you can listen to here.

The Dictionary of American Regional English (a.k.a. DARE) is finally completed — and it only took fifty years to do it! In the Boston Globe, Visual Thesaurus editor Ben Zimmer looks back on this monument to American speech, and looks ahead to new ways of approaching dialectology. Read his column here.

Ben Trawick-Smith is an actor with a deep interest in English dialects. On his Dialect Blog, he takes on a range of interesting linguistic issues. His latest post is perfect for the new year: it's all about the song that we butcher every New Year's Eve, "Auld Lang Syne." Get enlightened about the Scottish tune here.

Perhaps you've heard of Tebowing, the odd new trend of imitating the prayerful pose of Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow. On the Oxford University Press blog, Visual Thesaurus contributor Mark Peters digs up many more eponyms drawn from the names of sports figures, from Bucknered to Plaxidentally. Read it here.