More book recommendations: For a smart, in-depth look at language change and usage controversies, Martha suggests Talk on the Wild Side: Why Language Can’t Be Tamed by Lane Greene. Grant says his 11-year-old son thoroughly enjoyed all of the...
The parent of a highschooler in Madison, Wisconsin, says that at the beginning of each semester, when her daughter’s classmates introduce themselves and their preferred pronouns, gender-neutral students often say their pronouns are they and...
When Julie, a journalism student at California’s San Francisco State University, got her dream job covering the San Francisco Giants for a season, she noticed while transcribing interviews that the players seemed to use the terms somebody...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s puzzle this week involves adding a letter to the names of famous bands to come up with entirely new ones. For example, Billy Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool are trading in their instruments for a lime-colored...
A U.S. Forest Service firefighter in Lakeland, Florida, also teaches classes on chainsaw safety, and wants to make sure he’s using gender-neutral pronouns when doing so. The epicene pronoun they will work just fine. This is part of a complete...
Right off the bat, it’s easy to think of several everyday expressions that derive from America’s pastime–including “right off the bat.” The Dickson Baseball Dictionary catalogues not only those contributions but also...