From cholera to Spanish flu to "Wuhan virus," what we call a disease reveals our fears and prejudices.  Continue reading...

The woman suffrage movement introduced Americans to a new vocabulary of voting rights. Here's a centennial look back at our linguistic debt to the 19th Amendment and its advocates.  Continue reading...

Here's a look back at the brands that made the biggest impact — positive or negative — on technology, culture, and society.  Continue reading...

Want to create your own memorable character names? Here are some strategies that work... and some pitfalls to sidestep.  Continue reading...

In many ways, Prohibition was a social and legal failure, but in one respect it succeeded wildly: It vastly enriched our lexicons of slang and marketing, often to lasting effect.  Continue reading...

What a glorious time to be job-hunting in the US! I'm not talking about the relatively low unemployment rate; I'm referring to the high rate of job-title inflation.  Continue reading...

What are you reading right here, right now? A sentence? A paragraph? An article? In the universe of 21st-century media and marketing, these words on this website are content. What does all this content have in common? That glorious, maddening series of tubes, the internet.  Continue reading...