Cowboy talk above your huckleberry? Stop barkin' at the knot and check out these websites that decode the singular language of the American cowboy:

Texian Cowboy

Cowboy Term Dictionary

Carved Eggs

Cowboy and Rodeo Glossary

Chef Terrance Brennan is the founder of Artisanal Premium Cheese, a company that practices the fine art of affinage -- the age-old craft of maturing and aging cheese to achieve peak flavor. He's also something of a cheese revolutionary -- a chef who's helped Americans discover and appreciate the sublime magic of handcrafted artisanal cheese (we'll get to that word in a minute). What better person to ask about cheese words?

Paste. "The body within the rind of the cheese, what the French call the 'pate.' In other words, the interior of the cheese."

Farmstead. "Cheese milked and produced from the same farm."

 Continue reading...

Wordsmith.org is something of an institution on the Internet, an online community started by computer-engineer-turned-linguist Anu Garg back in 1994 that now reaches more than 600,000 subscribers in 200 countries with its daily A.Word.A.Day newsletter. This email is more than just a new word every day: Anu also adds a daily, delicious quote from his extensive literary readings to inspire, challenge -- and surprise -- us. The Visual Thesaurus is proud to sponsor A.Word.A.Day and delighted to speak with Anu about his own, latest, book, on "the hidden lives and strange origins of words" entitled, The Dord, the Diglot, and an Avocado or Two. Our conversation:  Continue reading...

Keen to read the "most fresshe and newe postes?" These sites celebrate the English of yore!

Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog (Yes, folks, a blog written entirely in Middle English!)

Lectio Anglorum

Anglo-Saxon Aloud

Old English in New York

Unlocked Wordhoard

Words like "spacesuit," "blast off" and "robot" weren't born in science -- but in science fiction. To learn more, we called Jeff Prucher, the editor of Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, a rich and fascinating compendium of words invented and popularized by the genre. We spoke to him about science fiction's impact on English:  Continue reading...

Jeff Prucher, the science fiction dictionary editor we interview in this week's "Behind the Dictionary" feature, recommends these books on the intersection of language and science fiction:

Critical Terms for Science Fiction and Fantasy by Gary K. Wolfe

Science Fiction Quotations by Gary Westfahl

Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon by Michael Adams ("A landmark in the study of the language of the fantastic.")