John Donne's poem The Undertaking, published in the early 17th century, suggests that forgetting the he and she would be "a braver thing than all the Worthies did." In a way, that is the same problem that's currently being considered in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.  Continue reading...

It's time to dive headfirst into that confoundingest of subjects: the formation of comparatives and superlatives.  Continue reading...

October marks the centenary of the Volstead Act, the enabler of Prohibition. This occasion licenses the Language Lounge to pop the corks a bit early and look at the linguistic legacy of the Prohibition era.  Continue reading...

What a glorious time to be job-hunting in the US! I'm not talking about the relatively low unemployment rate; I'm referring to the high rate of job-title inflation.  Continue reading...

A valuable new tool has become available for linguists — armchair and professional alike — to explore the language of contemporary news.  Continue reading...

Metaphors about space come at us so thick and fast in talking about the digital world that we don't even notice that they are there, and that's probably a good thing: it helps us to make sense of complicated phenomena.  Continue reading...