The leaves have fallen and there's a chill in the air, so that could mean only one thing: Word of the Year season is starting! This year, the New Oxford American Dictionary kicks things off with its annual choice: hypermiling, meaning "attempting to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to one's car and one's driving techniques."  Continue reading...

Jon D. of King of Prussia, Pa. writes in with a Mailbag Friday question: " There has been a lot of talk about a landslide victory during this recent presidential election. Not being sure if we actually experienced one or not, I was wondering if you could educate us on what the term actually means and its historical context in describing elections."  Continue reading...

Last night, the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses held its fifth annual Spelling Bee in support of its non-profit efforts to help out independent literary publishers. The CLMP always attracts an all-star cast of spellers from the New York book world. This time around, the Visual Thesaurus joined forces with the CLMP Bee, supplying the words to stump the cream of the literary crop.  Continue reading...

In the home stretch of the presidential campaign trail, John McCain has been saying that his opponent Barack Obama is so sure that he's bound for the White House that he's already "measuring the drapes." It's a durable political expression, though very often it's said as "measuring for drapes" (which makes a bit more sense), and sometimes it's curtains that get presumptuously measured (for), rather than drapes. What's the difference, anyway?  Continue reading...

Today's question for Mailbag Friday comes from our own puzzlemaster, Brendan Emmett Quigley, who's been watching a lot of football. "What gives with all these sportscasters saying 'Team A out-physicaled Team B'? Physical, last time I checked, is an adjective and not a verb, right?"

Brendan's question reminds me of a saying attributed to the great philosopher Calvin (the one from "Calvin and Hobbes," of course): "Verbing weirds language."  Continue reading...

Last week, American lexiphiles celebrated the 250th birthday of Noah Webster — or his semiquincentennial, if you want to be sesquipedalian about it. On the other side of the pond, British word lovers recently had their own Dictionary Day, on the 299th birthday of Samuel Johnson. (Mark your calendars now for the big Johnsonian blow-out of September 18, 2009, sure to be a rollicking tercentennial!)  Continue reading...

It's time once again for Mailbag Friday! Marc T. of New York, NY writes: "John McCain recently said that he put his campaign on hold to work on the Senate bailout package because 'it's not my style to simply phone it in.' Why do we talk about doing something in a lackluster or perfunctory way as phoning it in? Who originally did the phoning in, anyway?"

The history of American slang is often illuminating, and this is no exception: tracing the origins of this expression tells an intriguing story about the intersection of the technological and the theatrical.  Continue reading...