"The Lives They're Living" has been on hiatus but we're back with a vengeance. On the new episode, the great Dave Barry talks about the also great Roy Blount Jr. Among our topics: why Roy hasn't won the Mark Twain Prize, while Adam Sandler has. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Chuffed to be talking Not One-Off Britishisms at @profsandpints.bsky.social in Washington D.C. on Monday 7/21. Hoping you capital lot can come. @princetonupress.bsky.social www.ticketleap.events/tickets/prof...

Delighted to talk with Varda Bar-Kar about the legendary @janisian.bsky.social on “The Lives They’re Living” pod. Varda’s documentary on Janis is playing in NY and LA podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f...

Possibly last stop on the “Gobsmacked!” tour—Zoom talk (with fun multimedia!) on Monday, March 10, 7 PM Eastern. @princetonupress.bsky.social @lynneguist.bsky.social Register here bit.ly/AnEveningWithBenYagoda

Delighted to talk with John Barth about the public broadcasting pioneer Bill Siemering, on The Lives They’re Living. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

New episode of The Lives They’re Living: #BeachBoys chronicler David Leaf on the legendary Van Dyke Parks. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

When I first had the idea for The Lives They're Living podcast, one name on my shortlist was Jonathan Schwartz, legendary disc jockey, writer and raconteur. Big thanks to his daughter Casey Schwartz for agreeing to come on and so generously sharing her insights. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

“Opposite number” as a Not One-off Britishism. Plus I antedate the first OED citation by two years. notoneoffbritishisms.com/2025/01/20/o...

Jasmine Paolini is like, “Why does my shirt say ‘Where’ on it?”

I’m probably late to realize this, but I just noticed that Google seems to have eliminated advanced search capability. That’s a huge step back in my world, especially on Google books. Am I missing something?

“Fortnight” top British linguistic import of the year—thanks to Taylor Swift.

Delighted to have a chance to fanboy out with @dwightgarner.bsky.social about the great Calvin Trillin. Among other things, we discuss that great continental restaurant La Maison de la Casa House, with its specialty "Stuff-Stuff a la Heavy." podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

All you really need to know about the various words of the year.

Over the moon, as the British (and some Americans) would say about today's extremely money Wall Street Journal review by the great Anne Curzan. To wit: "In 'Gobsmacked!,' Mr. Yagoda shows readers how to delight in the lexical creativity of this ever-changing language." www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Lynne is looking for nominations!

There’s a fairly convincing looking fake George Saunders account on here.

Positive “anymore” in @slate.bsky.social headline!

I just heard someone on the radio say “It had became known that…” and I am ready to start my day. @fritinancy.bsky.social

This “wasn’t on my bingo card” thing has reached cliché status faster than a speeding bullet. Do people even know what a bingo card is?

I believe we are at peak whataboutism.

AI gonna AI. Why and how would it invent an intermission?

Now that Apple has added ❓and 🙏 to Messages I guess that covers all human reactions, oh wait 👏 would be good

I actually grew up with a kid named Herby Stuffing. #Yum #WawaGobbler

Jeff Goldblum started out making the most out of a couple of minutes of screen time, now he’s back at it.

Wasn’t Stark Fealty a character in All the King’s Men?

I’m well chuffed too, plus over the moon.

A commash in the NY Times! And from the great Robert D. McFadden www.worldwidewords.org/ww-com1.html

Australian Macquarie Dictionary chooses “enshittification” as its word of the year. #woty2024

Intrusive “of” reaches the groves of academe (U of Pennsylvania). Or maybe the interviewer “heard” it @fritinancy.bsky.social

That great Joni line “Thinking of the pleasure I’m gonna have watching your hairline recede, my vain darling.” For me it’s “watching prices go up, you poor suckers.” It’s not much but it’s all I got.

My new name for the former guy is Mr. 49.9

So that’s where that expression comes from.

Wonderful obit of Bob “Butterbean” Love

"I would be delighted if you began your letters, 'Dear John.' In fact, you may call me anything you like except 'Ostrich,' with which sobriquet a boy called Eddie Pritchard tormented me when I was around five years old. In later life, you will be happy to hear, Eddie came to no good.”

Just realized Princeton University Press made a bloody brilliant video about my book. Gobsmacked!: The British Invasion of American English www.amazon.com/vdp/0206cde1...

“Turgid, flabby English of the kind common in inferior leading articles is full of abstract nouns ; the commonest ending of abstract nouns is -tion & to count the -ion words in what one has written….

Begging the question: “The fallacy of founding a conclusion on a basis that as much needs to be proved as the conclusion itself.” E. g., “That foxhunting is not cruel, since the fox enjoys the fun, & that one must keep servants, since all respectable people do so…” #FowlerModernEnglishUsage1926

I’m going to say something historians rarely say. We haven’t been here before. We haven’t had a near-authoritarian takeover of our government. Admittedly, we don’t know what comes next. There’s a wide array of options. But know that in the US, this is new ground. And none of this is normal.

“Now & then a person may be heard to ‘confess’, in the pride that apes humility, to being ‘a bit of a purist'; …

“MONOCLE. That this, a Hybrid Derivative, a Gallicism, & a word with no obvious meaning to the Englishman who hears it for the first time, should be ousting the entirely satisfactory ‘eyeglass’ is a melancholy illustration of the popular taste in language.” #FowlerModernEnglishUsage1926

Reading Fowler’s Modern English Usage (1926) and will post some highlights: “‘The better the writer, the shorter his words’ would be a statement needing many exceptions for individual persons & particular subjects; but for all that it would, & especially about English writers, be broadly true….

Well, if there’s no penalty, I’ll choose “Viscount”

, and without a doubt deserves a place in Guinness World Records.

Kind of thrilling—pigeonholes that held the word slips for Oxford English Dictionary. At Oxford’s University Press Museum.

“Baby bump” made it in America but I’m doubtful about “mum chums” because rhyme.

One sentence, four Britishisms. No, Americans aren’t polluting or homogenizing the Mother Tongue. (None of the four have made it over here either. )

Letter from Charles M. Schulz to Oxford English Dictionary, on the origin of “security blanket”

I was literally finishing the editing on a "The Lives They're Living" episode, with Chris Molanphy talking about Quincy Jones, when word came that Mr. Jones had died at the age of 91. So this goes out to his memory and his amazing legacy. On Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

In NYC last night near Madison Square Garden, everyone staffing stores and restaurants seemed to be immigrants from the MSG crowd’s “garbage countries.” How did they rationalize their midnight slice of pizza? They probably didn't think about it at all. Thinking has never been their strong suit.