Punctuation Personified: or, Pointing Made Easy (London: John Harris, 1824).

What Is Punctuation For?

Between the medieval and modern world, the marks used to make writing more legible changed from “pointing” to punctuation.
Two open mouths with water ripples emanating out towards each other

Words on the Way In: A Retrospective

The first installment of a new column on living language: talking about COVID (talk)
Male teacher assisting student at desk in classroom

How Not to Teach Grammar

When people with opinions and a platform rant about bad grammar, they're not helping, write two English professors.
An illustration by James Gillray, 1807

Vulgarity: An Alternative Language of the People

Was Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue the font of all popular culture studies?
Robert Redford, The Great Gatsby (1974)

When Very Bad Words Are the Sh*t (Linguistically Speaking)

The fact that people can use “literally” about things that can’t possibly be factual may literally make your blood boil.
Hamlet. Poster for W. S. Hardy Company, 1894

When Did the Verb “To Be” Enter the English Language?

A Curious Reader asks: To be or naught to be?
Woman shakes head in blurred motion against business buzzwords

The Tangled Language of Jargon

What our emotional reaction to jargon reveals about the evolution of the English language, and how the use of specialized terms can manipulate meaning.
Appalachian Mountains dialect

The Legendary Language of the Appalachian “Holler”

Is the unique Appalachian dialect the preserved language of Elizabethan England? Left over from Scots-Irish immigrants? Or something else altogether?
compliments

The Uncertain Art of the American Compliment

The way Americans compliment is maximalist and enthusiastic, but it may not always be sincere. Our resident linguist unpacks the language of politeness.