We have two new entries here, both present participles of verbs that might or might not exist. First is “efforting.” YourDictionary.com has one of the few online definitions, which consists entirely ...

An error has occurred. Please try again. With a Lewiston Sun Journal subscription, you can gift 5 articles each month. It looks like you do not have any active ...

Writers and language geeks inherit a ranking system of sorts: verbs good, adjectives bad, nouns sadly unavoidable. Verbs are action, verve! “I ate the day / Deliberately, that its tang / Might quicken ...

Are you a “verb” person or a “noun” person? Does it matter? Knowing how you relate to the world around you does matter. In the grand scheme of things, it isn’t critical whether you coordinate your ...

Linguists have long believed that the sound of a word reveals nothing about its meaning, with a few exceptions of words like “buzz” or “beep” that are known as onomatopoeia. But a new study analyzing ...

As a linguist, I’ve lost count of how many times I have been asked what I think of the various language-learning apps. The truth is that I don’t use them. But of late I have been watching my daughter, ...

Grammar jargon can be pretty off-putting. Try dropping a term like dangling participle or object predicative at your next office party and you’ll see what I mean. That’s why I avoid the ...

Every few weeks, I get another missive from a reader angry about the common use of certain nouns as verbs. The most frequent irritant is "to impact", which annoys conservatives, but people have also ...