This month in the Lounge we examine the implications of a silent but deadly usurpation of the language of the People, brought to light by an intellectual property court case.  Continue reading...

Academy Award-winning producer and director Tony Bill has spent years collecting Hollywood argot on the sets of his films. Now he reveals this secret cinematic language in his new book, Movie Speak: How to Talk Like You Belong on a Film Set. Don't know the difference between a goofie and a gaffer? Read on!  Continue reading...

With the deepening of "The Great Recession" (or whatever we end up calling the current crisis), our language continues to reflect the tough economic times. Here is a primer on recession-related terminology that has been circulating in recent months, as we struggle to put the global financial uncertainty into words.  Continue reading...

Does the addition of words like za and qi to the Scrabble player's arsenal mean that "Z" and "Q" are now overvalued? The Wall Street Journal's Numbers Guy investigates, here and here.

Among the idioms of modern American English, few are as puzzling to unpack as the expression "the whole nine yards," meaning 'the full extent of something.' Though it is of relatively recent vintage, etymologists have yet to discover a credible historical explanation for what the "nine yards" might refer to — there are a multitude of theories, some quite fanciful, but none are supported by documentary evidence. In the past few years, however, some significant progress has been made to unearth early examples of the idiom, which may eventually help to smoke out where those "nine yards" originally came from.  Continue reading...

In the two years since we launched word lists on the Visual Thesaurus, subscribers have taken advantage of the feature to catalogue everything from economics vocabulary to skateboarding verbs. Now it's easier than ever to organize your word lists and keep track of your favorite lists.  Continue reading...