Teachers, if you are looking to infuse your 2012 curriculum with some timely material, this official "Get Set" website can provide you with all kinds of Olympics-focused teaching resources. From biographies of the star athletes to interactive games and challenges, "Get Set" can help motivate your students to become part of the action.

Sadly, I won't be in Portland for the American Dialect Society's meeting, that annual gathering of learned lexicographers and amateur wordinistas. This is an outrage. What foul conspiracy of left-wing moonbats, right-wing wingnuts, and middle-wing batnuts conspired to keep me away?  Continue reading...

Ben Trawick-Smith is an actor with a deep interest in English dialects. On his Dialect Blog, he takes on a range of interesting linguistic issues. His latest post is perfect for the new year: it's all about the song that we butcher every New Year's Eve, "Auld Lang Syne." Get enlightened about the Scottish tune here.

Perhaps you've heard of Tebowing, the odd new trend of imitating the prayerful pose of Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow. On the Oxford University Press blog, Visual Thesaurus contributor Mark Peters digs up many more eponyms drawn from the names of sports figures, from Bucknered to Plaxidentally. Read it here.

When word nerdom and sci-fi nerdom collide, what do you get? A dictionary-bot that recites definitions while performing the duties of a butler? Someday, I hope that's true. For now, the answer is From Elvish to Klingon: Exploring Invented Languages: a thorough look at invented languages (also known as conlangs, short for constructed languages) from sci-fi and elsewhere.  Continue reading...