Some people proudly embrace the label cancer survivor, while others feel that’s not quite the right word. Is there a better term for someone who’s battled cancer? Writers and listeners share the best sentence they’ve read all day. Plus, koofers and...
Charles in Virginia asks about breaking bad, a phrase he grew up hearing to mean “raise hell,” “get wild,” or stop being nice, as in threatening to “break bad on” someone. Vince Gilligan, a Virginian, made the expression nationally familiar with the...
Vape, meaning “to smoke an electronic cigarette,” is among the entries in Grant’s tenth annual Words of the Year List for The New York Times. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Vaping” All right, I’ve got out my prognosticator...
Grant has compiled his ninth annual words-of-the-year piece for The New York Times Sunday Review section. Among these gems is the verb doxing, as in documenting someone’s life and share it on the web. What were your picks for the words of 2012? This...
Why do newspaper reporters end articles with the number 30 or the three-pound-sign symbol ###? No one knows for sure, although that never stopped journalists from debating the origin of this way of ending a story. The practice arose in a bygone era...
Is it appropriate to use emoticons in business emails? After all, you wouldn’t write a smiley face in a printed letter, right? Martha and Grant discuss the point at which you start using those little symbols in correspondence. Call it “The Rubicon...