The New Language Police

I wrote four articles on the new political correctness for American Purpose. The first discusses the term homeless and the…

AIDS History Project

The NEH-supported AIDS History Project focuses on how the city of San Francisco experienced and responded to this terrible disease.

John Simpson, Word Detective

Was impressed by this lexicographical memoir by former OED editor John Simpson. I have read enough writing by lexicographers to…

On Charles McCarry

I have been reading McCarry’s latest, The Mulberry Bush, which made me think I should post my 2009 profile of…

Verily: Men Versus Women

Women are more correct and more with-it: A piece inspired by reading Matt Gordon’s primer on the work of the…