The Atlantic ran a story on its blog earlier this week about the many emotions for which English does not have words. Some examples include the euphoria first experienced upon falling… Read more »

No judgment here, but it’s more than a little interesting that six of the anonymous sources who spoke to John Heilemann for his New York magazine story about President Obama’s reelection… 3 / Read more »

If some commentators are to be believed, we’ll soon be barking nothing but txtspk at one another, such is the degeneration of the English language in the hands of yoofs.… Read more »

When diabetes took her vision away, Dorset native Trish Vickers took to poetry to bring order to her suddenly chaotic life. In time, Mrs. Vickers found that the pen suited… Read more »

Bad news, fellow publishers. We’ve been so busy fretting about Amazon’s tyranny, bookshop closures, and the rise of the ebook, that we’ve missed the fatal threat posed to us by Facebook.… 2 / Read more »

Alexander Nazaryan at the Daily News (New York — not L.A. or Galveston) has compiled a list of neologisms, taken from the online Urban Dictionary, all derived from the names of famous… Read more »

I know, I know, the New York Times and The Guardian write about Downton Abbey every day and the damn thing is sanctified. Oh yeah? Not so fast, you bougy… Read more »

Here’s an argument that always ruffles some feathers: do the users of a language create or follow its rules? Since the codification of languages began—the 16th century, if we’re talking… 2 / Read more »

The Big Think recently published this great list of untranslatable words related to relationships. Our favourites: Ilunga (Bantu): A person who is willing to forgive abuse the first time; tolerate it… Read more »

What frequently used metaphors make you shudder, dear readers? As George Orwell writes in his oft-quoted essay, “Politics and the English Language”: “The sole aim of a metaphor is to… Read more »