You'd think we'd know enough from history that there's nothing good down the hyper-nativist path. And yet, rallying to the nativist calls is often seen as the most patriotic thing we can do. For a country of immigrants, we sure have a particular disdain for immigrants.

There’s a children’s rhyme that involves liars and pants on fire and various types of wires. Now, we can say things are “pants on fire” false.

The parents of the shooter had clearly been negligent in their responsibilities to their son and their community. Jennifer Crumbley will now have to face lawful consequences for her actions (or, more accurately, inaction). It doesn't fix anything, but justice does provide a reason to be hopeful that lessons have been learned.

If you worry about if or whether you should use "if" or "whether" in exactly this construction, you're not alone.

It's disheartening how quickly it goes from people's real concerns to the gamification of those concerns.

It's been really dreary and so icy outside lately. It's awfully tempting to wear super cozy clothes and use lots of intensifiers.

Shawn Fain has made quite a name for himself for being an authentic, often salty voice of the working class. He can be theatrical, but he also says what he means and doesn't seem to suffer fools. I've also read similar things said in praise of Donald Trump (usually by Trump himself).

Badgers live underground and are nocturnal, so we don't see them running around all that often. Somehow though, they're associated with a negative, annoying verb.

Okay, granted, winter did hit later than it usually does this year. But in the end, it is January, and this is Michigan, so it really isn't that remarkable. And yet, that doesn't stop all of us from persistently remarking, does it?

The year 2023 is officially in the record books. As part of taking stock, the members of the American Dialect Society met to consider what we've all been up to linguistically.