The Articles

  • Korean Tongue Surgery How far should someone go to speak perfect English? In Northeast Asia, some people have done things never imagined by native speakers. In centuries-old cultures a generation has tried to master ...
  • The New # 1 A huge country where people speak 850 languages is home to six times as many English speakers as the birthplace of the language. This is not the United States. The world ...
  • Out of India Three languages battle to dominate over a billion people. English has made India a world player. The country is an outsourcing king, especially among publishers. Read a book or visit a ...
  • Short Sword Slogans One day not long ago nearly a million people went online to vote for one. A global computer maker recently launched one. And so did a brewery in Wales, a ...
  • Analyzing Evil Speeches The man who gave the world “the axis of evil” left the White House, presumably never to return. Though his words captured people’s attention around the world, chief speech writer, ...
  • Word Brawling Want to see hundreds of expensively dressed men and women trading verbal punches? Look at any election for the United States Congress. Political slugfests also happen in Britain, Australia, Canada, and ...
  • Ode to This Election Words are a big part of the American experiment in democracy. To commemorate this we’ve assembled a collection of explanations about one year’s election into the following “Ode to This ...
  • Really, Really Sorry Before you give your next apology, consider some recent results of saying sorry. After apologizing for his prime minister, an Australian was suddenly forced off-line. In Las Vegas a man who ...
  • A Surge in the Capital Even as the US president said, “Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship,” ...
  • Presidential Speeches Analyzed New White House speechwriters-in-chief always change the speech of the US president. They cleverly modify his highest profile messages through the words they allocate to him and how often he ...
  • The Lawyer’s Special Word History sometimes turns on the drama of a single word. The word in this case is “recall”. When it’s served up 70 times by a person in one meeting, the mystery ...
  • The Great Wall of Japan Traveling to Japan involves surprising hazards. Among them language hazards. Rather than a lack of English being the problem, just the opposite is the case. Japan produces English, lots of ...
  • The Progress Mantra “Progress is a message that we send One step closer to the future One inch closer to the end” How, under immense pressure, did the world’s most powerful leader chose to rely on ...
  • Progress Is Our Most Important Product “No one knows how to define progress in such a mixed-up situation.” And so began a U.S. congressman’s proposal to use stock market techniques to measure war progress. Americans need progress. ...
  • Exposing Sub-Texts in Politicians Big money came to American presidential contest in 2008, breaking the psychological barrier of a billion dollars and making it the most expensive ever. And, as a result, the wordiest. The ...
  • Fluffy, Cream-Stuffed Campaign Tricks You can be sure that campaign tricks are seldom forgotten by people in the business of politics. Obama, McCain, Clinton, Giuliani were once the leading deep-pocket candidates in 2008. Their ...
  • The Power of Drug Names Recognize characters in the following short scene? Paxil faced Crestor saying, “Xanax of Lipitor seeks the Neurontin.” Hearing this, Zoloft rose from Levitra, dropped his Lyrica and crossed the Cialis to ...
  • Drug Superheroes In each of these pairs of drug names one is actual, one is fictional. Can you tell which is which? Fans of Stephen King, MadTV and Star Trek will have ...
  • Drug Superstars Save our life and you’ll get thanks, respect and veneration. But bring us pleasure or enhance our lifestyles and we’ll be yours forever. Drug makers have noticed this acutely. They now ...
  • Fluffy and Fact-Free Campaigns perhaps never die. Their gibberish just echoes on and on. “In a world where evil still exists…now is the time, this is the place…for our families, for our future, for ...
  • A Country’s Favorite Words To see into the hearts and minds of a people, you can do worse than to look at the word they hold most dear. No so long ago two thousand Brits ...
  • Liar, Liar Often when they sense prevarication, journalists begin walking a line in their reports just short of calling someone a liar. In the case of one vice presidential nominee’s speech some ...
  • How to Tell a Funny Story “The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the MANNER of the telling; the comic ...
  • The New Words We Hate From time to time in the gaps between wars, corruption, elections and celebrity gossip the media shifts its roving spotlight toward the latest new words heard around the planet. What ...