Clarence Major, Dictionary of Afro-American Slang (1970), The Queen's Vernacular: A Gay Lexicon, San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books (1972), and Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler with Ann Russo, A ...

The English language grows a little more every year. It becomes richer, warmer, and more diverse as people across the world create new words. It borrows expressions from other cultures or changes the ...

It took more than 70 years and tons of volunteer labor to create “the definitive record of the English language”—including an assist from a murderer. When the London Philological Society came up with ...

When the complete edition of what would become the Oxford English Dictionary debuted in 1928, it was lauded as a comprehensive collection of the English language, a glossary so vast—and so ...

From dropped words to fake definitions, learn fun facts, hearsay, and scandal about our most useful language resource, and the words that make it up. You might be surprised to learn what the most ...

The great lexicographers understood that a worthy dictionary was descriptive, not prescriptive. It would simply record what we’ve already agreed upon socially You can save this article by registering ...

The print edition of Merriam-Webster was once a touchstone of authority and stability. Then the internet brought about a ...

Kingsley Ugwuanyi is affiliated with the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and also consults for the Oxford English Dictionary on their Nigerian English project Nigeria was recently in the spotlight when ...

There was a time when Urban Dictionary felt essential. Twenty-six years ago, when then-college freshman Aaron Peckham founded ...

Mr. Tersigni is a cultural critic. Have you ever obeyed the suggestions of a digital writing assistant to replace a word or restructure a sentence without knowing how, why or even if it made your ...