Neal Whitman's recent column on the language of "choice" in education ("Make good choices!") got me thinking about how choice and choose are used in marketing. From the flight attendant's cheery "We know you have a choice when you fly — thanks for choosing us!" to IKEA's "Choose your own entertainment adventure," we're constantly encouraged to select from an array of options. But what does all that choice mean?  Continue reading...

In the newest chapter of the late-night television wars, "Tonight Show" host Conan O'Brien has announced that he won't go along with NBC's plan to bump his show to a midnight time slot to make way for Jay Leno at 11:30. After O'Brien made his announcement, he was the recipient of an immediate outpouring of support online. Thousands joined the Team Conan Facebook group, while thousands more expressed their allegiance on Twitter using the #TeamConan hashtag. Where did all this "Team" talk come from?  Continue reading...

Boston Globe language columnist Jan Freeman has launched a new blog, "Throw Grammar from the Train" (subtitled "Notes from a Recovering Nitpicker"). It's a great title for what's sure to be a great outlet for clear-headed thinking about English usage. Read it here. (And read our interview with Jan about her new book, Ambrose Bierce's Write it Right, here.)

Our own Mark Peters takes a look back at a decade in euphemisms, by trawling through the annual selections of "most euphemistic" words by the American Dialect Society — from courtesy calls to scooping technicians.  Continue reading...

When did shall go out of fashion as the first person marker for the future tense? Or was it ever in fashion? This month in the Lounge we look at the career of English's most mismanaged modal.  Continue reading...

Justice Antonin Scalia recently interrupted a lawyer during a Supreme Court oral argument to chastise him for using the word choate (the opposite of inchoate). What's Scalia's beef? Find out in the latest New York Times Magazine "On Language" column by Visual Thesaurus editor Ben Zimmer, now online here.