All Verbal Energy
Enron's gift to students of languageThe Texas energy giant’s record for largest corporate bankruptcy has long since been overtaken, but linguists will be feasting on the Enron e-mail dataset for years.
Whither the subjunctive?Yes, language changes. But this old-fashioned verb mood is still useful when the voice of authority speaks.
Ellipses that drive us dottyThe word for the path of the planets has a common ancestor with the term for the words that get left out.
The nontrivial pursuits of summerA metaphor of three roads diverging – or converging – underlies a group of words describing what really matters, and what doesn’t.
So how fast is deliberately, anyway?Discussion around recent court decisions on gay marriage suggests that the pace of social change can be pretty swift.
- Awkwardness goes in the wrong direction
The story of a familiar word shows how words carry their history within them.
Buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffaloA sentence consisting of a single word repeated multiple times shows the great flexibility of the English language.
Scrolling through the history of the bookThe search to find out when bound books replaced scrolls leads to a new appreciation of why printed books still hold their own as a “high-tech” format.
The paradox of 'code'This hardworking monosyllable refers both to ways of making things known and ways of keeping them secret.
A grammar issue I've just tuned in to – or into?A question from a dinner guest prompts a closer look at the nuances of ‘into’ and ‘in to.’
Grasping the idea of what it means to forgetA European court ruling upholds a Spaniard’s ‘right to be forgotten.’
'Getting' and the constants of human natureThe simple word ‘get’ gets around – even if it gets on some editors’ nerves.
A wordsmith's garden of 'versus'A preposition that started out being quite confrontational has mellowed over time, to cover not just fights in court or the ring, but just ordinary comparisons
Working it out with the algobotsHigh-frequency trading may be the hottest new thing on Wall Street, but the term for bots that make it happen has ancient roots.
Big ideas in small talkA provocative bit of video considers the geographic variations in the questions people ask to take the measure of a stranger.
I did not leave my original on the copierA document gone astray at tax time reminds the Monitor’s language columnist how technology has changed the distinctions between original and copy.
Taxing taxonomies and 'the Chicken From Hell'A conversation with a vertebrate paleontologist reminds the Monitor's language columnist just how many nuances enter into the way we describe life-forms.
Of oligarchs and plutocratsA look at the two much-used terms for the rich and powerful.
The peripatetic copy editorMore drive time this winter has given the Monitor's language columnist time to think – and copy-edit her fellow travelers' signage.
Dog-whistle editingWriters should be wary of 'rules' that draw a distinction without making a difference.
