WHEN Johnson needs to research something, a long list of bookmarks, plus a stack of physical books, plus a phone jammed with apps, have made the work faster and more fun. This column is dedicated to a few of the things that make working with language easier and more enjoyable. Indeed, there has never been […]

TWO years ago, a short post on the Johnson blog, called “What is the Chinese language?”, became one of the most commented pieces in the history of Economist.com. Classifying languages is a hot topic, because linguistic and social facts can be hard to disentangle. Last week, we returned to the topic with a piece called […]

JOHNSON often takes a curious rather than a judgmental view of language use: where many fuss and fret that the language is falling to pieces, your columnist often finds that examining the messy use of language in the real world is more fun than finger-wagging. But that doesn’t mean that Johnson doesn’t think that words […]

Is the modern Ukraine one nation? The question is not meant to be provocative. But it is worth asking, since Ukraine is deeply divided on its international destiny: roughly speaking, does it belong more closely to the European Union or to Russia? Political divides cut Ukraine into eastern and western halves. The last two presidential […]

DAVID BUCKLAND, the founder of Cape Farewell, hopes to persuade the public to engage with the issue of climate change by using the language of art rather than science from Prospero http://ift.tt/1beu2Xp via IFTTT

THE English poet William Barnes (pictured) is no household name. But that is almost a shame, because he represented a strand that we don’t otherwise see much of: English purism. Imagining what would have happened if he had been more influential makes for an interesting thought experiment. Any language in contact with other languages borrows […]