Predictive text on cellphones can result in some amusing accidental substitutions. The word for that: textonym. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Textonym” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, how are you? Doing well...
If you have a word lover on your gift list, Martha and Grant have book recommendations for you. For adults, Martha recommends linguist Geoffrey Nunberg’s collection of essays, The Years of Talking Dangerously. For kids, Grant’s been...
OMG, text messaging! It’s destroying the English language, corrupting young minds, turning us into illiterates. It’s probably shrinking the ozone layer, too. Or is it? In his new book, Txting: The Gr8 Db8, David Crystal offers a...
Heigh-ho! It's another newsletter from "A Way with Words," and we've got treats. Climb into our van! There are two minicasts for you, for one thing. What’s the deal with using the two-letter postal code abbreviations...
For a closer look at the language of the twitterati, check out Erin McKean’s recent piece in the Boston Globe. Glossaries of Twitter-related terms can be found at Twittonary, and Twictionary. We didn’t say all the coinages were clever...
smishing n.— «Scams via text message are becoming so widespread there is actually a new name for it—”smishing”—a takeoff of SMS text messaging and phishing.» —“Text Message Scam Targeting U.S. Bank...