The stay-at-home orders of recent months have meant a lot more time to deep-dive into etymologies, and this has led me to reflect on a thing I hadn't noticed as much before: English has a surfeit of expressions for the idea 1 + 1.  Continue reading...

A case recently argued before the US Supreme Court — by telephone! — teaches us a lot about trademarks, generic terms, and domain names.  Continue reading...

Do the profound insights made by J. L. Austin and Paul Grice have any application to "conversations" in which the traffic in words is by definition all or nearly all one-way?  Continue reading...

Before the 20th century, generational names were rare or nonexistent. What changed? And what do the names of generations tell us about history and identity?  Continue reading...

We'll all be doing each other a great favor by paying most of our attention to the substance of what others say, and the least of our attention to the way they say it.  Continue reading...

Caremongering? Quarantini? Zoom-bombing? The COVID-19 pandemic has already inspired its own lexicon of coined words.  Continue reading...