Charles Nelson of Hoxton in East London has been working as a 'knocker-up' for 25 years. He wakes up early morning workers such as doctors, market traders and drivers.

Who and What Was a Knocker-Upper?

Pour one out for the people paid to rouse the workers of industrial Britain.
A dead whale being cleaned by whalers

So You Plan to Teach Moby Dick

The study of Melville’s novel is enhanced by contextualizing it with primary and secondary sources related to the American sperm whaling industry.
The January 1961 cover for Mad Magazine

Mad About Nixon

No other personality appeared more often on the cover of Mad during the first fifty years of the satirical magazine’s life.
The First "Computer Bug" Moth found trapped between points at Relay # 70, Panel F, of the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator at Harvard University, 9 September 1947.

The Bug in the Computer Bug Story

Soon after a team of engineers discovered a moth in a machine at Harvard, the word "bug" became a standard part of the programmer's lexicon. Or did it?
Boy and girl standing in front of camera with car.

Fun with Naming Decades in History

Whether the 2020s will roar remains to be seen, but people have been coming up with nicknames for decades since the Elegant (18)80s.
A punk with a mohawk in a cottagecore painting

The Punk Rock Linguistics of Cottagecore

So you want to borrow a concept from another culture but don’t know what to call it? Try a morpheme!
Taylor Swift at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards

The Linguistic Evolution of Taylor Swift

If Taylor Swift shifts her accent in her transition from country to pop, does she lose the personal authenticity important to country music?
Pro-police demonstrators argue across a temporary barricade during a protest outside the Governors Mansion on June 27, 2020 in St Paul, Minnesota.

Is Political Backlash Real?

Many people assume that strong movements for minority rights provoke backlash at the polls. But some scholars have doubts.
Electric Fan

The Linguistic Case for Sh*t Hitting the Fan

Idioms have a special power to draw people together in a way that plain speech doesn't.
Two face masks in front of some text about the COVID-19 virus

When Language Goes Viral

How do innocuous words become insidious in the face of a public health emergency?