In this weekend's WSJ Review section: The Met Gala may have made "gala" a fashion buzzword, but it's actually been around for centuries to describe glamorous occasions where high society breaks out their finery. https://on.wsj.com/44y4NyH
In this weekend's WSJ Review section: The word "homeless" is getting displaced by "unhoused," favored by advocates seeking terminology that is less pejorative and more humanizing. https://on.wsj.com/4aP6yd5
Now presenting (from Natan Last, Parker Higgins @xor and me)... Crossword Craze, celebrating a century of crossword-mania. We'll be looking back at how the craze took off in 1924 from the vantage point of 2024. Subscribe to get it in your inbox! https://crosswordcraze.today/introducing/
One hundred years ago, two Columbia grads named Simon and Schuster published a book of crossword puzzles that set off a national mania. Now the crossword craze has been reborn in the digital era. My latest for WSJ. https://on.wsj.com/3U3zMPk
In this weekend's WSJ Review section: It all started as a joke among friends studying physics at the University of Alberta. Now 17 years later, everyone seems to be embracing the idea that "fluffle" is a collective noun for a group of rabbits. https://on.wsj.com/4au1bzk
Have you come across "fluffle" as a term for a group of rabbits? The collective noun that has taken social media by storm actually originated as a joke among a group of Canadian undergrads. My latest for WSJ. (Thanks to @wayword for helping solve the mystery!) https://on.wsj.com/4au1bzk
In this weekend's WSJ Review section: The writer O. Henry, who fled to Guatemala after embezzling money from a Texas bank, popularized the expression "banana republic," which lives on as a pejorative term for a small, unstable country dominated by foreign corporate interests. https://bit.ly/4cpSAzz
With the cult sci-fi classic "The Blob" getting a remake, my latest for WSJ looks at how the original movie had a big effect on the word "blob" itself, now used for various massive amorphous forces. https://on.wsj.com/3uCEoST
In this weekend's WSJ Review section: Was it a "snub" when Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie didn't get Oscar nominations for "Barbie"? A word that originally referred to a cutting retort has become an awards-season cliché. https://on.wsj.com/4bnTEDk
In this weekend's WSJ Review section: Daytime soap operas have been on TV for 75 years now. But how did they get their sudsy name? Companies like Procter & Gamble advertised soap brands to housewives going back to the '30s on radio. https://on.wsj.com/3vNfShX
"Stochastic parrot," coined by @emilymbender for "large language models that...do not truly understand the meaning of the language they are processing," was recognized as AI-Related Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society. My latest for WSJ. 🦜 https://on.wsj.com/47DKfVf
In this weekend's WSJ Review section: As the original Mickey Mouse enters the public domain, I take a look at how the name "Mickey Mouse" has taken on negative associations, inspired by the character's frivolous nature and diminutive size. https://on.wsj.com/3vmd3Eu