The word “amazing” simply fails to amaze anymore. It’s high time for someone to put a halt on the most over-used adjective in the English language. All we hear these days is: “This salad is amazing;” ...

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 ...

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.

Word meanings can shift radically, just like pronunciation. Called semantic change, a shift in a word's meaning occurs when frequent misuse becomes standard, or when metaphoric use becomes literal.

Some time ago, I fell into conversation with a colleague about what we had been reading lately, and the person suggested that I absolutely must give Henry James’s “The Ambassadors” a try. The pandemic ...