Bryan A. Garner wears many hats: he is a lawyer, a prolific lecturer, and an equally prolific author. Since 1995, he has been editor-in-chief of Black's Law Dictionary. He is also the author of Garner's Modern American Usage, a widely respected guide to contemporary usage that has just been published in its third edition. In this, the first of our two-part interview with Garner, we learn what it means to be an "informed prescriptivist," and why you should be wary of anyone who uses prior to instead of before.  Continue reading...

Eyewash! Piffle! Twaddle! Mumbo jumbo! Want to know twenty ways to describe nonsensical speech? Maeve Maddox of Daily Writing Tips has the answers here.

Today is a big day for Beatles fans: the band's entire catalog is being reissued in digitally remastered form, and the video game "The Beatles: Rock Band" is also set for release. And what better day than 09/09/09, considering the band's love of the number nine (enneaphilia?), from "The One After 909" to "Revolution No. 9." In honor of the latest wave of Beatles nostalgia, I've been mulling over a bit of nonsense from the fertile mind of John Lennon: the timeless chant heard in "I Am the Walrus," "Goo goo ga joob."  Continue reading...

The anachronistic dictionary that showed up recently on "Mad Men" was just the tip of the iceberg. Linguist John McWhorter argues that the supposedly authentic TV drama doesn't really capture how Americans spoke in the early '60s. Read all about it on his New Republic blog.

Recently, at the vibrant dog community in Chicago's Lincoln Park, a two-pound, three-month-old malti-poo puppy was engaged in a rigorous, Pepe le Pew-like program of incessantly humping every dog in his path. Well, not every dog. He did stick to pooches that were somewhat in his "league," such as my own 12-pound rat terrier, who thankfully didn't bite the preposterous puppy's head off for taking such liberties.  Continue reading...

"Double zeroes"? "Goose eggs"? "Diddly-squats"? Visual Thesaurus contributor Mark Peters considers the tricky question of what we should call the current decade in his latest column for Good Magazine.