If you want to be a better writer, try skipping today’s bestsellers, and read one from the 1930’s instead. Or read something besides fiction in order to find your own metaphors and perspective. Plus, just because a city’s name...
The Pope has several Twitter feeds — and one of them’s entirely in Latin! But how do you adapt an ancient language to the modern world of selfies and hashtags? Plus, pit bull lovers are giving their dogs a linguistic makeover;...
Although I don’t have as much time to read as I’d like, here are a few books I have recently read and enjoyed. Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books by Aaron Lansky of the Yiddish Book...
phenomenalia n.— «What hath The Wiggles wrought? In the etymology of pop-culture phenomenalia, crystallized with the Aussie happy-feet band in the colored skivvies, born of the wistful singalongs in the original MM Club—M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U...
deliteracy n.— «The very purpose of this series is to combat what I call the ‘deliteracy’ of current and common culture, i.e.- the active dumbing down of art and discourse. Nowadays, many magazines that used to interview people of...
East Los n.— «I’m a 42 year old vato from east los with four children and a love of Jesus Christ.» —“Re: Excuse Me !!!” by Lloyd Sanchez Usenet: soc.culture.mexican.american Jun 26, 1994. (source: Double-Tongued...

