By William Germano. It’s hard not to be familiar with the term Big Pharma, an acidulated nickname for the pharmaceutical business. More...
By Lucy Ferriss. The use of the reflexive pronoun in a nonreflexive way seems to be a growing phenomenon, but the data are mixed. Among the and -self phrases, and myself occurs most frequently, according to the Corpus of Contemporary American English as well as Google’s Ngram Viewer – but and myself, per COCA, has declined significantly since 1990, whereas and himself has risen. More...
By Lucy Ferriss. Anyone who writes seriously pays attention to punctuation; we know that. That devilish comma in the Second Amendment has spawned countless 21st-century opinion columns despite its obvious roots in 18th-century conventions. More...
By Allan Metcalf. There’s nothing like a dramatic pause to heighten the excitement of an announcement. As we’ll see next weekend, that’s how the Oscars are announced. The presenter declares “And the winner is … ” or “and the Oscar goes to … ” and then pauses to open the envelope and read the name. If the presenter has trouble opening or reading, so much the better. Every second increases the suspense. More...
By Allan Metcalf. It’s smart … ish. It’s cool … ish. It’s up-to-date … ish.
Well, ish!
No, I can’t claim that ish is new. In fact, ish has been in the English language since before there was an English language. More...
By Geoffrey Pullum. Harvard is considering whether the long-established term “House Master” should be changed, because a group of Latino students has protested that it reminds them of the tradition of slave masters. More...
By Geoffrey Pullum. Just when you need maximally careful use of the uniquely human gift of language, everything goes to hell and people start throwing clichés around like ninja stars. Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, has just called a referendum for June 23 in which the electorate will address this question:
Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?
And immediately everything is slogans and fearmongering and soundbites and similes. More...
By Ben Yagoda. If you heard I had posted on Lingua Franca about Emma Donoghue’s Room, you might justifiably expect that I’d written about the way the narrator of the novel, 5-year-old Jack, uses language. Jack’s entire life has taken place in an 11-by-11 foot room, where he is confined with his mother. More...
By Ben Yagoda. You may have caught this Budweiser ad during the Super Bowl. Dame Helen Mirren sits before a burger, is served a Bud (not bloody likely), and counsels, in strong language, against driving drunk. More...
By Sarah Knapton. Researchers claim languages should be a requirement for any kind of degree as bilingualism could protect the brain in later life. Read more...
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