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...

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

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

Are you having a rebuilding year? Whether you're building, rebuilding, reloading, unloading, or just slowly turning to dust, euphemisms are a proven distraction from the perils of your own life.  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...

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...