EditorMark

It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something The song's name is "Prisencolinensinainciusol." That's not a typo; in 1972 Italian pop star Adriano Celentano wanted to mimic what English sounds like to non-English speakers.

Linguists must have been giddy to hear “Prisencolinensinainciusol” at the Olympic opening. I was.

www.npr.org/2012/11/04/1...

share.google/7Erdf4Dvc6vy...

#ThatWordChat returns with Joshua Blackburn and Jess Zafarris for a deep dive into wordplay, obscure etymologies, and the new edition of "League of the Lexicon."

Tues, Feb 10, 4:30 ET | 20:30 UTC
Sign up: ThatWordChat.com

#BoardGames #Lexicon #WordNerd

The Em Dash - 99% Invisible Last summer, Bryan Vance found himself in an argument with a stranger on Reddit. Vance, a Portland-based journalist who runs Stumptown Savings, a newsletter covering local grocery deals, had been accused of using ChatGPT to write his content. The evidence? His use of em dashes. “A Reddit user accused me of using AI, pointing to

On @99pi.org again! This time round I spoke to Will Aspinall about the storied em dash (‘—′, that is, rather than ‘–′ or ‘-′, but you knew that). Listen at 99percentinvisible.o..., or read my own earlier piece on AI and the em dash at shadycharacters.co.u....

If you are an editor who used the CIA factbook, it’s gone, deleted, so you might want to bookmark this

When AI Fact-Checking Gets the Facts Backward I used a custom-built agentic workflow to fact-check an article I was writing about Apple's reported $5 billion deal with Google to power Siri with Gemini. The AI verified every claim as accurate. It ...

AI does not obviate the need for human editors. @shellypalmer.bsky.social breaks it down.

shellypalmer.com/2026/01/when...

When Canadian editors noticed British spellings appearing in federal budget documents, they did more than note a shift in style. They wrote an open letter to the prime minister.

Read the full story: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/world/canada/carney-british-spelling.html

Fiddly zee This time: Transatlantic Words of 2025, the rest of the WotYs, and more fun links

The latest Separated by a Common Newsletter is out!

Includes:
•SbaCL Transatlantic Words of the Year!
•More WotYs from around the world (check out the Icelandic one, it's great!)
•Links to insightful linguistic content & yet another stupidly addictive game

lynneguist.substack.com/p/fiddly-zee

TOMORROW: That Word Chat’s #WOTY panel returns.

Experts from the OED, Merriam-Webster, the American Dialect Society, the University of Michigan, the University of Sussex, and Mashed Radish break down the words of 2025.

Still time to grab your spot!

Register: ThatWordChat.com

#ThatWordChat

Here is a seemingly unpopular viewpoint: The military arrest of Maduro was not an attack on Venezuelan sovereignty. Maduro is a criminal who lost an election and was reigning as a dictator. (I can see why the White House struggles to make that case, though.)

Indicted Election-Denying Would-Be Dictator Captures Indicted Election-Denying Dictator

To clarify: Calibri is a *much* better font than Times New Roman and making text more readable is an important goal.

So… it’s not (just) a joke. The US government continues to punch down.

Grammar Bite: Don’t Dangle Your Participle Participle. Your English teacher used the term once or twice but it didn’t really stick with you.

In this month's Improve Your Business Writing newsletter, I'm tackling dangling participles. These grammar mistakes can blur meaning and create unintentional humor in professional writing.
Read it now: zurl.co/LtBUR
#AmEditing #WritingTips

In the latest episode of #ThatWordChat, Peter Sokolowski joins us to talk about the 12th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate—the first full update in 22 years.

Watch: bit.ly/ThatWordVideo

Listen: thatwordchat.podbean.com

#Lexicography #Editing #Publishing #MerriamWebster #CulturalLinguistics

Have something editors can use tomorrow? Submit a proposal to present an ACES Academy webcast. 

Start your proposal here: https://aceseditors.org/training/the-aces-academy/want-to-propose-a-webcast

A close-up photograph of Martha Barnette, co-host of "A Way with Words" and author of "Friends with Words: Adventures in Languageland." She is a smiling woman with short, gray hair, wearing pearl earrings and a dark jacket, standing against a background of wood paneling and doors. An orange overlay covers the bottom half of the image, containing white text that identifies her and notes the image is for "GRAMMAR GIRL CONVERSATIONS." The word "INTERVIEW" is also in a white box on the upper left.

@marthabarnette.bsky.social's book "Friends With Words" is packed with tidbits for word lovers, and in today's podcast we look at some of my favorites:

— Why South Carolinians paint porches "haint blue" (to ward off ghosts)
— What a "quidnunc" is (a nosy neighbor)

1/2

APPLE: tinyurl.com/2cwb4t92

What is YOUR Word of the Year for 2025?

Our friends at the @efafreelancers.bsky.social are asking the editing community to help with this year's Rate Survey with a public survey open to nonmember freelancers in addition to the member survey. Find the public survey at twp.ai/ImsmoM

Pled head This time: pled or pleaded? British kids talking trash? Last words and words of the year. Plus more links than you'll click, but isn't it nice that they're there?

Cutting it fine again...November's Separated by a Common Newsletter is up and out!

Includes: pled or pleaded? British kids talking trash? Last words and words of the year. Plus links, links, links

lynneguist.substack.com/p/pled-head

I think some of the greatest delights in the business of etymology are words—especially everyday words—whose origins we just don’t know.

So, this year, I’ll do an etymological Advent calendar on this theme: words with origins that are obscure, uncertain, or otherwise unknown.

I’d read it as underkissing. Well, not really because context. But I’d have a good chuckle.

It's arrived—and it's gorgeous.

I opened @merriam-webster.com's new Twelfth Collegiate at random, and the first word I came across was the second, verbal sense of "load."

Huzzah!

This spread also showcases some delights, like the illustrations and word lists.

Macquarie Dictionary announces ‘AI slop’ as its word of the year, beating out Ozempic face Term was up against a shortlist including blind box, ate (and left no crumbs) and Roman Empire

The latest #WotY2025 is from Macquarie Dictionary:

AI slop

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Our Policy Magazine Word of the Year for 2025: 'Pathocracy' - Policy Magazine In 2016, for instance, the US presidential campaign that saw the field culled to what polls showed was the most off-putting choice in history generated a

Our Policy magazine (.ca) declares #WotY2025

PATHOCRACY

www.policymagazine.ca/our-policy-m...

'Das crazy' has been voted German Youth Word of the Year 2025 Every year, Germany’s youth select their annual "Youth Word of the Year", which is voted for by youngsters around the country.View on euronews

Oh my goodness, it gets earlier every year.
The Word of the Year thread starts here with the

2025 German Youth WotY: das crazy

uk.news.yahoo.com/das-crazy-vo...

2025 has been an eventful year for Canada's identity. To commemorate the year, The Society for Canadian English is choosing a 2025 word of the year (CWOTY), based on the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles.
Have your say: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

We've just recorded an interview with @lynneguist.bsky.social for the @lexispodcast.bsky.social and then this absolute whopper of a piece gets published. It's jam-packed with clichéd complaints, hoary hyperbole & xenophobic waffle.
archive.ph/2025.11.24-0...

The Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year 2025 Cambridge Dictionary has announced parasocial as its Word of the Year 2025. Learn what parasocial relationships mean in social media, AI companions, fandom culture and celebrity obsession.

This one surprises to me. The Cambridge Dictionary 2025 Word of the Year is "parasocial."

"Parasocial" feels more 2017 to me. Have you heard it more lately?

Make your 2025 words-of-the-year nominations for the only vote that matters! bit.ly/2025WOTYNOMS

Happening today!

Join #ThatWordChat at 4:30 p.m. ET for a live conversation with Merriam-Webster’s Peter Sokolowski on the new 12th edition of the dictionary.

Grab your virtual seat: ThatWordChat.com

#Editors #Lexicography #WordNerd

Screenshot of a social media post that says "Friends, I have discovered my new patron saint" in reply to a post with a picture of an 18th century gentleman and the words "'I see that you have made 3 spelling mistakes.' Last words of Marquis de Favras after reading his death sentence before being hanged (1790)"