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The Language of Lost
Others, smoke monsters, frozen donkey wheels and other prime-time words.Lost is a show that piles WTF upon WTF. Absorbing to many, maddening to...
Read & DiscussIs Retweeting Plagiarism?
The evolution of citation and plagiarism via Twitter. As someone who has been teaching college writing for 12 years, I’ve seen a lot of...
Read & DiscussThe Truther Movement Grows
How a conspiracy-theory catchword got its legs.For those of us who don't believe the moon landing was faked or Area 51 in Nevada is hiding the...
Read & DiscussBoobquake: The Big One
On the pop culture Richter scale, this went all the way up to 11. As you probably know by now, the April 26 event known as Boobquake drew more...
Read & DiscussThe History of the "Dude"
Charting the evolution of a gender-hopping, meaning-changing, spelling-flexible word People fear, loathe, and ignore change. The term...
Read & DiscussWhuck?!
A WTF-y addition to the tradition of F-word euphemisms. As fans of 30 Rock (or this column) know, Tina Fey’s awesome comedy has been a fertile...
Read & DiscussThe Best Worst Names in the World
The curious tradition of bad baby names, from Mann Pigg to Tu Morrow. One of many things I can thank my parents for is my name. “Mark” is...
Read & DiscussLet's Play "Name the Atheist”
Different ways of naming the godless. In the era of bestselling pro-atheist books by Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins...
Read & DiscussArf! Yamph! Woof! Yaffle! Yawp!
The history of describing (and transcribing) dog words into English. If your dog is anything like my dog, you've been privy to some wild, far-out...
Read & DiscussDon’t Kanye Me!
A successful eponym moves beyond the award-show scene. By now, the 2010 Oscars are long-gone, as the ravenous celebuworld moves on to fresh...
Read & DiscussGet Your Irish Up
For St. Patrick's Day, get to know your Éire-inspired words, from Irish apricots to Irish wolfhounds. St. Patrick's Day is a time to remember...
Read & DiscussWhat Is a Person, Anyway?
Humans, apes, dolphins, dogs, and other good country people. If you said, "a human being," you have a lot of company, but you've only scratched...
Read & DiscussNaming the Tiger Woods Syndrome
The naming of sexual excess-from satyromaniac to hypersexual disorder. Though he's still an amateur by the standards of Wilt Chamberlain, who...
Read & DiscussSleeping Beauties
"New" words that are actually old as dirt. Pop culture sure has a way of spreading new words, like when Stephen Colbert invented "truthiness"...
Read & DiscussWord Blending: Linguistic Crossbreeds from Smog to Snowverload
If you want to make a word, there are plenty of ways to go. You can save space by shortening a word ("whatever" becomes "whatevs") or making an...
Read & DiscussBlitz! Football’s Most War-torn Word
The bloody history of one of football's greatest words. As a fan of the Buffalo Bills-the only team to go to four Super Bowls in a row, and the...
Read & DiscussAnyone Speak Klingon Around Here?
The weird world of invented languages-from Esperanto to Avatar. I haven't seen the mega-hit Avatar yet, and I don't plan to: The whole thing...
Read & DiscussGenerification: When "Google" Becomes "google"
How tweeting, googling, and McJobs have changed the way we use branded words. When the American Dialect Society met in Baltimore in early...
Read & DiscussThe Age of the Nontroversy
A useful word for the proliferation of useless stories. I'm mystified by the harsh treatment of Washington Wizard Gilbert Arenas, whose only...
Read & DiscussWhy "Undiebomber" Works
How our latest criminal nickname caught on so quickly. Nicknaming criminals is a long tradition that encompasses Jack the Ripper, Billy the...
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