Linguistics and Big Data have been a fruitful partnership since they first found each other, and new hookups with promising results are happening all the time. Here's a small sampling of the riches to be found in two new corpora — the TV Corpus and the Movie Corpus.  Continue reading...

Here are some of the euphemisms I've scraped, like barnacles, off the bloated boat of language. Do not attempt such hazardous, horsepucky-adjacent collection yourself.  Continue reading...

It's that time of year when I choose a Euphemism of the Year. I've whittled the list down to four candidates, which are the lexical equivalent of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  Continue reading...

The well of drivel will never run dry, so let's amble through the latest and worst euphemisms I've collected during the first month of my second decade as a euphemism columnist.  Continue reading...

Whatever you read into it, the "All the king's ___" snowclone is now solidly embedded in the popular consciousness and in headline-writers' bag of tricks.  Continue reading...

Have you ever been a special guest? I like to think all guests are special, but I can't say the same for all words. Please name, blame, and shame the following lexical varmints, which even my rat terrier can't seem to exterminate.  Continue reading...