I recently went to see a production of John Ford's play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, a 17th-century British delight that is easily one of my all-time favorite titles to get to say. The production was excellent, but my companion and I were disappointed that the company we saw chose to drop the last line of the play, when (spoiler!) the Cardinal in the play says, "...who could not say, 'tis pity she's a whore?" Yes, that's right, they cut the line that gives the play its title. The play felt incomplete, and incorrectly named, without it.  Continue reading...

Emotional transport is not a regular feature or goal of popular music, which seems generally to be the aural equivalent of snack food. Popular tunes are littered with disposable lyrics. And yet every now and then, the language of a song can take you outside the confines of the three-minute window to something more enduring.  Continue reading...

The latest issue of the literary magazine Lapham's Quarterly has as its theme "Means of Communication," and the closing piece, by VT editor Ben Zimmer, is a reconsideration of the thesaurus as a tool for modern writers. He finds many reasons to remain optimistic about the thesaurus as a reference work (and not just because of the Visual Thesaurus!). Read his piece here.

If — two letters, one little puff of breath between tongue and teeth—ranks high among language's most powerful and mysterious words: little if can build all the castles in Spain. The dictionary calls if a conjunction meaning "supposing that"; I call if a trigger word, one that signals and sets off the extraordinary mental process we call imagination.  Continue reading...

Writer and journalist Ben Gibberd is British by birth but has made his home in New York City. Here Ben shares his experiences of writing for the New York Times, which required him to make all manner of linguistic adjustments in order to write in an American (and Timesian) style.  Continue reading...

Negative writing tips, I find, can be just as helpful as a positive ones. And, often, they're far more memorable. Here, then, are 17 things you should stop doing immediately, if you want to improve your writing.  Continue reading...