Some holiday words have more than one meaning, like "trim" the tree. And some meanings have more than one word, like "gift" ...

Effective communication is a hallmark of intelligence. It involves not just what you say, but how you say it. Smart individuals often choose their words carefully, prioritizing clarity, precision, and ...

Thanks to the evolution of language, technology, and lots of hyperbole, these words used to convey a lot more merit, emotion, or simply seriousness than they do nowadays. Ah, “genius.” Once reserved ...

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them. Words sometimes have two meanings, as Led Zeppelin sang ...

With analysts and vendors using "technical debt" and other phrases to mean whatever they want them to mean, someone has to defend the language. IT loves buzzwords. But it is now becoming frightfully ...

“MISOGYNY” SEEMS a straightforward word. In dictionaries, it is “hatred of women”. In its etymology are the Greek verb misein, to hate, and gyne, women. The word, like the sentiment, has been around ...

Children learn language effortlessly and completely voluntarily. They learn new words miraculously fast. A teenager masters about 60,000 words of their mother tongue by the time they finish high ...

Decades after I began writing about language, there are still words I avoid out of fear I’ll use them wrong. And worse: Some of these are terms I’ve learned, written about, then promptly forgotten.