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  1. Candlepower

     Unpacking "Hack"
    Fri May 20 00:00:00 EDT 2016
    If you're looking for proof of the English language's remarkable flexibility, enter the word hack into the New York Times's search field. The newest results will include a mention of "hack politicians" and a reference to "the suspected hack of Sony Pictures by North Korea" in 2014.

  2. Word Count

     Why Writers Should Take a Stand Against Sitting
    Tue May 17 00:00:00 EDT 2016

    Writing at a standing desk is a principle that just kind of crept up on me.

    You see, I have a bad back. Second, I love to walk. If ever there were a person ill designed for sitting all day at a desk, it would be me.

  3. Evasive Maneuvers

     Naturally Flavored Dreams About Graduation
    Mon May 09 00:00:00 EDT 2016
    The Americans is my favorite TV show. Set in the 1980s, it features a web of duplicity like I've never seen, as married KGB agents Elizabeth and Phillip Jennings lie to their neighbors, manipulate their children, steal deadly chemical weapons, murder a bunch of people, wear lots of wigs, and try to maintain a healthy marriage while destroying America. Unsurprisingly, the show's many dastardly deceivers often use euphemisms.

  4. Language Lounge

     Light and Variable Sins
    Sun May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016
    Speakers are prone to misinterpret an expression for various reasons and then incorporate the incorrect usage into their lexicons. When such misusages become widespread, the question that arises is whether the new and nominally incorrect version of an expression should be regarded as acceptable.

  5. Dog Eared

     A Descriptive Prescriber's Useful Usage Guide
    Tue Apr 26 00:00:00 EDT 2016
    Garner's Modern English Usage, which just released its fourth edition, is potentially a damn useful thing to me. And after looking through Bryan A. Garner's latest, I can report that the potential is realized: this is an extremely useful and sensible guide. I don't know if I would sleep with it under my pillow, but I won't keep it far from my desk.

  6. Word Count

     The Benefits of Boredom for Writers
    Thu Apr 21 00:00:00 EDT 2016
    It turns out that boredom is not just a troublesome feeling that we should avoid. It's something we should embrace. And entertainers around the world know this already.

  7. Candlepower

     "Common Sense" and Sensibility
    Tue Apr 19 00:00:00 EDT 2016
    Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice-presidential candidate, briefly made headlines last month when it was announced that she'd signed a production deal for a TV "reality" show set in a courtroom. "She'll preside over the courtroom of common sense," according to Larry Lyttle, the man behind the deal. If the show materializes, it won't be the first time a politician has claimed "common sense" as a preeminent virtue.

  8. Evasive Maneuvers

     Othersourcing All the Right Things
    Wed Apr 06 00:00:00 EDT 2016
    After last month's keen analysis of remix—perhaps the most obnoxious euphemism for a layoff ever—fellow contributor Nancy Friedman tweeted me another example from this bottomless genre: "A friend was told that her layoff was 'a continuation of growth that was started in the department a couple of years ago.'"

  9. Word Routes

     A Big Upset in the Competitive Crossword World
    Mon Apr 04 00:00:00 EDT 2016
    While college basketball fans may be marveling at the exciting upsets of March Madness, the world of competitive crossword solving has experienced a major upset as well, as six-time reigning champion Dan Feyer was dethroned in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, losing out to first-time champ Howard Barkin.

  10. Language Lounge

     Fractious Compounds: How Should Dictionaries Treat Words Like "Heart-Shaped"?
    Fri Apr 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016
    One of the ways in which massive corpora (databases of natural language examples) have revolutionized lexicography is by providing access to a level of statistical analysis of language that was never before possible. The data in a corpus can tell us, with the effort of a few keystrokes—and backed by the effort of hundreds of person-hours of software development—all we need to know about the most frequent uses and collocations of words.
31 32 33 34 35 Displaying 321-330 of 3488 Results