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  1. Blog Excerpts

     Little Words Help Crack the "Cuckoo's Calling" Case
    Wed Jul 17 01:00:00 EDT 2013
    "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling was recently revealed to have written a crime novel, "The Cuckoo's Calling," using the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. How she was found out involved a couple of linguistic experts analyzing the "little words" that are used in the novel's text.

  2. Word Count

     Killing the Zombies: "None," "And," "However"
    Tue Jul 16 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    Last month, I introduced the idea of a zombie rule: a false grammar rule that is taught and followed slavishly as though it were the real thing. Like their namesakes, these rules have no life in them, but they keep returning no matter how many times their true form is revealed.

  3. Word Count

     Pleas-ing Words: Prepositions and Crime
    Mon Jul 15 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    One man "pleaded guilty to DWI." Another "pled guilty of DWI." A third "entered a plea of guilty to DWI charges."

    What's going on, aside from way too much drinking?

  4. Word Routes

     Debunking the Legend of "Upset"
    Fri Jul 12 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    Some stories about word origins recall the old Italian saying, se è non vero, è ben trovato: even if it is not true, it is well invented. One such too-good-to-check story involves the sporting usage of upset, which, it is said, came to be because an unfavored horse named Upset beat the great thoroughbred Man o' War.

  5. Word Count

     Why Writing Talent Doesn't Matter
    Thu Jul 11 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    My triplets turned 19 this year — a family milestone that set my rapidly graying head spinning: How did they go from fitting inside my belly to being three such enormous teenagers? How did I survive the early years on so little sleep? What on earth did I do with all my spare time before having kids?

  6. Blog Excerpts

     Upheaval in Egypt: Is It a "Coup"?
    Wed Jul 10 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    Since the overthrow of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, U.S. government officials have been wrestling with a question of semantics: should Morsi's removal be called a coup? The answer to the question has serious foreign-policy implications.

  7. Wordshop

     Triple Play: Teaching Words in Threes
    Tue Jul 09 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    High/low, yes/no, black/white. There's something reassuring about opposites. A lot of vocabulary teaching is done using pairs of opposites, and with good reason: learners really feel they have a handle on a concept if they grasp its antithesis. There are, however, some other concept families that are best learned using three terms — triples — that provide a middle ground which in turn enhances all three concepts.

  8. Word Count

     Grammar Police: Zealousness over Correctness
    Mon Jul 08 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    The New York Times recently posted an opinion piece and a short film about a "vigilante copy editor" who was "correcting" placards at the sculpture garden at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Among the hundreds of comments lamenting the proliferation of bad grammar and misspellings in the world were the inevitable swipes at the grammar and spelling of the other commenters, as well as that of The Times.

  9. Word Routes

     New Light on "Uncle Sam"
    Thu Jul 04 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    Last December I commemorated the two hundredth anniversary of what was then the first-known appearance of "Uncle Sam" as a personification of the United States, which turned up in a Bennington, Vermont newspaper. Now, just in time for the Fourth of July, comes new evidence that "Uncle Sam" was in use as early as 1810, more than two years before the phrase's popularization in the War of 1812.

  10. Word Count

     The Power of Equality: An Independence Day Special
    Wed Jul 03 00:00:00 EDT 2013
    "All men are created equal." This sentence stands among the most powerful five words penned since Biblical times. America's founders declared the sentence a "self-evident truth," and for two hundred and thirty-seven years it has been both the rock on which the nation's democracy has stood firm, and a lightning flash that has inspired rebels everywhere to fight against the lies of tyrants.
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