From cholera to Spanish flu to "Wuhan virus," what we call a disease reveals our fears and prejudices.  Continue reading...

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the merger of four railroads in the United States to create the longest railroad in the world by number of miles served. I note the anniversary as an item of linguistic curiosity, in light of the many ways that railroads and trains have made their way into popular and figurative English.  Continue reading...

Thanks to the prominence of pronouns and the depth of Baron's work, a Tour of the History of Nonbinary Pronouns is probably going to be the language book of the year.  Continue reading...

The woman suffrage movement introduced Americans to a new vocabulary of voting rights. Here's a centennial look back at our linguistic debt to the 19th Amendment and its advocates.  Continue reading...

If you've visited the world of online dating you may have noticed the disparities between the ways males and females present themselves, and the disparities between the ways that they seem to want to appear to each other.  Continue reading...

Linguistically, it seems, the second decade of the 21st century was all about our selves. At its annual meeting the American Dialect Society selected (my) pronouns as its word of the year for 2019 and singular or nonbinary they as the word of the decade.  Continue reading...