Many of us struggled with the Old English poem “Beowulf” in high school. But what if you could actually hear “Beowulf” in the English of today? There’s a new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley that uses contemporary...
Mav in Madison, Wisconsin, has heard content creators on platforms like YouTube and Twitch address their viewers collectively with the word chat, as in Chat, is this real? and Do you see this, chat? She’s heard some people describe chat used...
Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley is a thrilling rendition of the centuries-old poem. (Bookshop|Amazon) Headley translates the poem using modern vocabulary and even internet slang, with results that are, as one reviewer put it...
The initialism LLAS, meaning “love you like a sister,” isn’t a texting phenomenon—it goes back 30 or 40 years to when girls would write each other letters. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Love You Like a...
How do you indicate sarcasm in a text message or an email? If winky emoticons aren’t your thing, try left-leaning italics, as recommended by sartalics.com. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Sartalics” There’s...
Ben Zimmer published a brilliant collection of internet memes from the past twenty years in a the journal American Speech. Memes like facepalming and the O, rly? owl have allowed us to communicate otherwise unwritable sentiments via the internet...