The current love of my life is Green's Dictionary of Slang: an enormous, meticulous, ridiculously wonderful historical dictionary that's the biggest slang collection ever made (uncurated Wiki-crapola like Urban Dictionary doesn't count). Jonathon Green's slangapalooza is an extraordinary source for fulfilling this column's mission: finding under-the-radar euphemisms.  Continue reading...

The truth is no one really knows when the great bard was born, but Shakespeare's fans celebrate his life and work on April 23rd (ironically, the date of his death). Join us in paying homage to Shakespeare this week by using the Visual Thesaurus to get to the heart of some of his more famous puns.  Continue reading...

John Pollack makes a case for the cultural significance of the lowly pun in his new book, The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More Than Some Antics. Pollack, a former presidential speechwriter, was also the winner of the 1995 O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships, in Austin, Texas. In this excerpt, Pollack describes the first round of the competition.  Continue reading...

The baseball season is in full swing now, and as a long-suffering fan of the New York Mets, I've learned to content myself with the small pleasures of the game. The Mets started the season with a road trip, going 3-3 — not bad, I'll take it. Pitching in today's home opener at Citi Field is R.A. Dickey, who has emerged as a fan favorite, not just for his way with a knuckleball, but for his way with words.  Continue reading...

Charlie Sheen's ongoing meltdown has been a godsend for the lexicon. (Read VT supreme commander Ben Zimmer, Slate's Christopher Beam, or me for more.) But what has he done for the wild world of euphemisms?  Continue reading...