With the Halloween season now safely behind us for another year, I can bring to light a feature of it that has haunted me in recent weeks.  Continue reading...

Don't want to be known as a climate change denier? Call yourself a climate change agnostic. I can't deny that there's a metric tuchus-load of euphemisms out there, because the evidence is enough to overwhelm a drivel agnostic.  Continue reading...

A craving for linguistic rationality – not to mention a fondness for wordplay – explains how acronyms begat backronyms.  Continue reading...

Fictional eponyms are a new frontier for brand naming, and the territory is quickly becoming well populated. A partial list includes Amazon's Alexa, the health insurance company Oscar, the "intelligent oven" June, and the mattress brand Eve. The first-name brand isn't your boss – it's your buddy.  Continue reading...

In many areas of business and personal life, failure is being redefined as either a challenge that can be overcome with the right coaching or attitude – or, at the extreme, as a source of pride. What's behind this upbeat sense of what it means to fail?  Continue reading...

The names of some of the world's most successful brands – from Accenture to Zantac – were widely ridiculed when they were first announced. Today those names are not just accepted but admired. It turns out there's a reason and a name for the attitude shift: The more we're exposed to something unfamiliar, the more we like it. Welcome to the Zajonc effect.  Continue reading...