In the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, competitors are asked to write incredibly bad opening sentences to incredibly bad novels. The 2010 winner for worst opening line features a comparison to "the world's thirstiest gerbil." Read the whole thing, and the rest of the results, here.

For "Oops," the latest episode of WNYC's Radiolab, Visual Thesaurus editor Ben Zimmer shares examples of unfortunate search-and-replace errors. (Did you know Queen Elizabeth lays 2,000 eggs a day?) Listen here, and check out Language Log for further reading.

Did you grow up speaking English in America or Canada? Then you can take part in an ambitious online project to gather information about the many diverse accents of North American English. All you need is a computer with a microphone, and your voice can be heard!  Continue reading...

As its "Cool News of the Day," Reveries Magazine has featured the latest New York Times "On Language" column by Visual Thesaurus editor Ben Zimmer on "the iteracy afflicting Facebook, Google and others." Read more here (and read here for a previous "Cool News of the Day" tied to Zimmer's column on etymythology).

The esteemed British newsweekly The Economist has launched a new blog all about language and its relation to global politics and culture. Though the blog is newly hatched, its name is venerable: Johnson, after the great lexicographer Samuel Johnson.  Continue reading...

As it did last year, The New York Times has tabulated the words that readers of the Times website click on the most to look up definitions. This year's leaders include inchoate, profligacy, sui generis, and austerity. Read all about it on the "After Deadline" blog here.

In the Wall Street Journal, John Murray uses the National Spelling Bee as a jumping off point for exploring the pivotal role that the lexicographer Noah Webster played in the development of American English, and how his faith informed his work. Check out Murray's column here.