“UK children pick ‘anxiety’ as their word of 2021”—blares a headline in The Guardian. Of course they did, we mutter morosely. Have you seen Euphoria? The kids aren’t alright. But… Read more »

A few short weeks that feel like a lifetime ago, we discussed the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak on the English language by charting the immediate, unscheduled additions to the Oxford… Read more »

Sitting at home thinking up puns on the word “Quar,” referring to your “covid boyfriend,” or texting your friends about what you’ll all do once “the ‘rona rolls through,” you are participating… Read more »

Every three months, the Oxford English Dictionary gets a pretty serious update to include “revised versions of existing entries (which replace the older versions), and new words and senses both… Read more »

Growing up in a very American family, I often had to listen to actual, bona-fide, real exhortations on America’s principal compendium of words, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. “Look at this fine pinnacle of… Read more »

In late August, Oxford Dictionaries, publishers of the venerable Oxford English Dictionary, launched a contest to determine the English-speaking world’s least favorite word. The hope was that many thousands of people… Read more »

Merriam-Webster has revealed its word of the year and, in what appears to be a fast-growing tradition, it is not technically a word. Merriam-Webster’s word of the year is a… Read more »

For the Observer, Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke reports that while you were busy eating leftover turkey last weekend, the New York Times was grappling with a potential change to their style guide.… Read more »

According to the Telegraph, the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is not only over twenty years behind schedule, but also risks losing its place in print. Michael Proffitt, who… Read more »

Drumroll, please! It’s time for the big announcement of which word the Oxford English Dictionaries has selected as its official word of the year. Which word, more than any other,… Read more »