Words of the year
From the Collins Dictionary, climate strike .
Cake revision
“Summa --- Laude.”
Needed: a word other than “meddle”
“Russian meddling” is too trivial a description of what’s gone on.
Recently updated
Oxford Dictionaries announces its word of the year.
M-W sentence challenge
“In the name of federalism, show some empathy, or at least some syzygy, you complicit gaffe-prone dotard,” the hurricane warned, “before I turn you into a gyro platter and recuse myself!”
Words of the year
Several picks.
If ever there was a need for misinflammation . . .
Anthony J. Blinken’s opinion piece in today’s New York Times cries out for use of the timely word misinflammation, coined in these pages last year.
E. B. White on America Firsters
Fascism, nationalism, and America Firsters.
Word of the day: tyrant
Our president-elect appears to possess the traits of both Platonic and theatrical tyrants.
Words for these times
From the American Heritage Dictionary, words for these times: “Minions, sycophants, toadies, and other creatures.”
Man, oh man
Dated language in a New York Times book review.
Merriam-Webster v. fascism
Merriam-Webster is encouraging readers to look up something other than “fascism.”
A word from the Danish
Hygge.
The honorific Mx
The gender-neutral title Mx may be joining the honorifics Miss , Mr , Mrs and Ms in the Oxford English Dictionary.
The gender-neutral hen
A new word in Swedish.
William Deresiewicz on heroes
“Perhaps no word in public life of late has been more thoroughly debased by overuse.”
The lunatic fringe again
“Lunatic fringe” first referred to hair.
Lunatic fringe
That hair.
Door supervision in the news
Door supervisors, or bouncers?
"All time"
"The words 'all time' play such an odd role in pop culture."
"[S]imply a controlled acute episode"
"I suspect that 'controlled acute episode' will join 'enhanced interrogation techniques' as historical shorthand for the George W. Bush administration's utter corruption of language, moral reasoning, and democratic principles."
R-word
03.31.09: end the r-word
"Working, hard-working Americans"
The language of race in the Clinton campaign