Month: December 2008
Early nominations for the grandaddy of all 2008 word-of-the-year votes are released
The product of one of the other hats I wear: … [ The short URL to this post is http://americandialect.org/woty2008/ ] Early nominations for the American Dialect Society’s 2008 word of the year vote are now available, including three batches from society members who specialize in following language trends, and a list of the most-nominated…
Buzzwords of 2008
My fifth annual “buzzwords of the year” article has been published by the New York Times. I’ll also be fielding questions about buzzwords, and about language in general, on the Times’ Ideas blog.
What is this shit?
My latest column in the Malaysia Star is about the word “shit.” This paragraph is the key one: [Shit] is, I believe, ready to be heard unbleeped (uncensored) on the government-regulated airwaves in America. It is also ready to be printed in mainstream periodicals without fear of outrage, without being remarked upon, or without being…