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  1. Word Routes

     How's Your Crosswordese?
    Tue Feb 24 00:00:00 EST 2009
    With this year's American Crossword Puzzle Tournament just around the corner, there is no better time to consider that peculiar, vowel-heavy brand of English known as "crosswordese." Think you're a first-rate cruciverbalist? Quick: can you tell an anoa from an unau?

  2. Word Count

     Recession-Proof Your Language!
    Mon Feb 23 00:00:00 EST 2009
    Mim Harrison, author of Spoken Like a Pro: An Insider's Guide to the Language of Professions and Smart Words, has some simple advice in these tough economic times: "Talk like a pro and you could save some dough."

  3. Blog Excerpts

     Yes We Can Learn English
    Mon Feb 23 00:00:00 EST 2009

    In Japan, the new craze among ESL students is learning English from the speeches of Barack Obama. The Wall Street Journal reports.

  4. Backstory

     Laura Benedict, Author of "Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts"
    Fri Feb 20 00:00:00 EST 2009
    I've given birth to two children by scheduled Cesarean section, so I never had to spend a moment in actual labor. Is it true that many women forget the painful hours they spent in natural childbirth? I read somewhere that nature created some mechanism in us by which women do, indeed, forget so that we'll be willing to have more than one child. If it's true, I think I could compare the writing of Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts to a kind of natural childbirth. Sometimes I look at that tidy book with its dark, evocative cover and wonder just how in the heck it got here.

  5. Behind the Dictionary

     What's Your Word of the Decade?
    Thu Feb 19 00:00:00 EST 2009
    The American Dialect Society wants to know what you think the Word of the Decade is. Which word best sums up the years from 2000 to 2009? Read the call for nominations below.

  6. Word Routes

     When Typos are Set in Stone
    Wed Feb 18 00:00:00 EST 2009
    Every writer knows the feeling: you've just released a carefully edited piece of prose into circulation, and when you take another look you cringe at the sight of a typo that you missed. With online writing, typos can very often be fixed without anyone even noticing. Printed errors usually require red-faced corrections. But don't feel too bad: imagine if your typos were etched in granite for all to see!

  7. Behind the Dictionary

     A Taste of "Alphabet Juice"
    Tue Feb 17 00:00:00 EST 2009
    Last week we interviewed the irrepressible Roy Blount, Jr. about his latest book, Alphabet Juice, an A-to-Z compendium of his musings on the glory of the English language. In this excerpt from the book's opening chapter, Blount considers the scholarly theory of the arbitrary relation between words and meanings, to which he firmly responds: "Arbitrary, schmarbitrary."

  8. Blog Excerpts

     The Digital Librarian
    Tue Feb 17 00:00:00 EST 2009

    As part of its series on "The Future of Reading," the New York Times reports on how school librarians must now be Internet experts. Read it here.

  9. Teachers at Work

     The Bee's Needs: Teaching "The Secret Life of Bees"
    Mon Feb 16 00:00:00 EST 2009
    Hey, have you guys heard about this crazy new thing lots of teachers are doing? It's a little nuts, so you may want to sit down. I was floored myself when I heard, but lots of language arts teachers are using recently-written literature in their classrooms! Like, literature not written by Hawthorne, Williams or Dickinson. Nuts!

  10. Word Count

     Lincoln the Writer at 200
    Fri Feb 13 00:00:00 EST 2009
    On the occasion of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday, Dennis Baron discovers that the Great Emancipator was also the Great Reviser. Baron is professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois and writes regularly on linguistic issues at The Web of Language.
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