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What is the most complex Chinese character?
Arika Okrent | May 19, 2013Biáng. And it's made up of 57 strokes
Palindromes, anagrams, and 9 other names for alphabetical antics
Judith B. Herman | May 16, 2013What do you call a word that looks the same upside-down?
18 delightful words from the final season of The Office
Angela Tung | May 15, 2013Dumpster man, chore wheel, stairmageddon, and more
The delights and frustrations of off-road grammar
Neal Whitman | May 15, 2013The rules of English grammar don't always provide a clear A-to-B linguistic route. Be prepared to take some detours.
11 baby-naming trends of the past
Arika Okrent | May 14, 2013The whole cities-as-names thing goes back way farther than you think
Why babies in every country on Earth say 'mama'
Therese O'Neill | May 12, 2013Like it or not, cross-cultural use of the word "mama" doesn't spring from some innate appreciation of moms
The week in words
Angela Tung | May 10, 2013From the meaning of "shaggledick" to the poshification of David Beckham's accent, the highlights from our favorite language blogs and the latest in word news and culture
The language Isaac Newton invented
Arika Okrent | May 9, 2013Newton is credited with many, many scientific innovations. His linguistic creations, on the other hand, never really took off.
Our favorite bits of 1920s slang
Angela Tung | May 8, 2013Beyond the bee's knees, phrases like French kiss, blind date, sexpert, and backseat driver were all coined in the roaring '20s
15 less-than-inspirational quotes from a book of moral advice
Arika Okrent | May 8, 2013Reaching for the stars probably isn't the most practical advice after all...
The 15,000-year-old ancestral language that birthed English and Russian
Chris Gayomali | May 7, 2013British scientists marvel over a proto-Eurasiatic tongue dating back to the Ice Age
11 spam comments that look like drunk thesauruses
Arika Okrent | May 6, 2013Nothing is certain but death, taxes, and spam comments on your blog
English spelling is terrible. Other languages are worse.
James Harbeck | May 6, 2013Many languages use an alphabet borrowed from a different language. It's like building a dining room set using an IKEA kit for a dresser.
Where did the phrase 'come out of the closet' come from?
Arika Okrent | May 5, 2013This expression for revealing one's homosexuality may seem natural. But it's actually a relatively new thing.
The Kentucky Derby: A brief guide to hat-related words
Angela Tung | May 4, 2013Some would have you believe the Kentucky Derby is about horse-racing. We know it's really about the hats.
13 cool new words we learned from TV in April
Angela Tung | May 3, 2013Co-POTAL, gestictionary, and more
8 symbols that we turned into words
Arika Okrent | May 3, 2013How / and ♥ became words in their own right
The evolution of The New York Times' favorite buzzword: 'Hipsters'
Chris Gayomali | May 2, 2013The term is "a kind of shorthand for all things young or urban or tight-jeaned or ironic or tattooed or … whatever."
Pop song titles are losing the love
Arika Okrent | April 29, 2013In recent years, the percentage of music hits with love in the song title has been only 30 percent of what it was in 1980. Why?
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