By Allan Metcalf. Arian is a favorite of mine. No, not the stand-alone Arian referring to a heresy in the early Christian church, nor the stand-alone Arian designating someone born under the sign of Aries, but the suffix -arian used to create so many schools of thought, going back four or five centuries. More...

By Allan Metcalf. Rhymes link words. In the hands of a master like Shakespeare, they gracefully tie together the disparate elements of, say, a sonnet. We admire a rhyme that quietly but firmly makes a bridge from one line or sentiment to the next. More...

By Allan Metcalf. Remember Tom Swifties?
I had forgotten that fad of the 1960s that took its inspiration unwittingly from the adverb-laden Tom Swift stories for boys earlier in the century. More...

By Allan Metcalf. As readers of Lingua Franca know, they won big last year. First it was reported in The New York Times as a substitute for he or she for those who identify as transgender, and thus do not want to be pinned down. More...

By Lucy Ferriss. It’s hard to tell exactly when the verb enable spawned the noun enabler. An 1825 issue of the Annual Register, per the OED, provides some hint in suggesting that “the word Habilitador might, if there were such a word, be translated Enabler.” A habilitador, or habilitater, was one who endowed something or someone with ability or capacity. More...

By Lucy Ferriss. So I’m writing my historical novel, minding my own business, when some sort of semantic bug bites me and sends me off on a language tangent. Does this ever happen to you? Last week, I was describing the building of a gristmill on a tributary of the Hudson River around 1700. More...

By Lucy Ferriss. I am one of thousands of nontweeters on Twitter, people who signed up for one silly reason or another (mine: my publisher told me to) yet have never found much to tweet about. Trying to work up my enthusiasm for this medium of communication, I asked avid tweeters what they loved about it. More...

By Lucy Ferriss. The illustration at left is from my local walk-in medical clinic, where I finally went after the New Year’s Cold persisted for two weeks. (I’m better now, thanks.) It interests me not only because of the continuing debate about doubled consonants, but also because of its implied narrative. More...

By Lucy Ferriss. I suspect there isn’t a reader out there who doesn’t have a story about being on the wrong side of so-called political correctness. Mine goes this way. More...