In his new book The Story of English in 100 Words, the absurdly prolific David Crystal provides a unique answer to a question he poses: "How can we tell the story of the English language?"  Continue reading...

You've read the advice to writers: Strive for clarity! Make your meaning transparent! Your sentences should be lucid and understandable, your paragraphs logically constructed, your meaning readily accessible to your readers. Who could quarrel with that?  Continue reading...

Even though National Grammar Day is behind us, that's no reason to stop celebrating grammar — or overturning cherished assumptions about grammar. Every year for NGD, University of California, San Diego linguistics grad student Gabe Doyle compiles a list of grammar myths that require debunking. Here's his latest roundup.  Continue reading...

We're coming up on National Grammar Day (it's March 4th, as in "march forth"), so we asked our resident linguist Neal Whitman to tackle a topic sure to warm the cockles of grammar-lovers' hearts: helping verbs! But how many are there? And can you fit them all into a catchy song?  Continue reading...

Long ago (in fact, seven years to the day), when the paint on the walls of the Language Lounge was still fresh, we talked about the ways in which sexism is reflected in the lexicon of English, using word maps in the Visual Thesaurus. The occasion was Women's History Month, and now, since that occasion has rolled around again, it's a suitable time to have another look at gender inequality in language.  Continue reading...

A friend of mine recently alerted me to an odd type of "word." See if you can guess what the following mean:

•   l10n
•   i18n
•   d11n

 Continue reading...