You would rather not be called hobbyless. That’s an insult appearing increasingly in social media that suggests someone spends far too much time on inconsequential things when they should get themselves a hobby. This is part of a complete episode...
A useful new expression: AI breath. It’s associated with writing that feels stale and impersonal. As AI-generated prose becomes easier to spot, we’ll likely be getting more and more whiffs of AI breath. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript...
Liam from San Francisco, California, asks about woo-woo, an adjective for beliefs or practices that strike someone as kooky, mystical, unscientific, or just a little out there. The modern use shows up by the 1980s and 1990s, and an early-1970s...
How do social media algorithms shape the way we communicate? A new book argues that the competition for clicks is changing the way we speak and write, from the so-called “YouTube accent” to the surprising evolution of the word preppy. Also: A...
The word preppy has undergone a considerable evolution since Boomers first used it to describe attire that reflects a conservative, polished, East-coast prep school look. For middle-schoolers today, preppy connotes an entirely different aesthetic:...
The so-called “lifestyle influencer accent” you hear in videos on TikTok and YouTube, where someone speaks with rising tones at the end of sentences and phrases, suggesting that they’re about to say something important, is a form of what linguists...