#mcwhorter

New York Times columnist, best-selling author, linguist and Columbia University professor John McWhorter doesn’t shy away from controversy and isn’t afraid to offend people.  Take, for instance, “The Golden Girls.” In his New York Times opinion article on the TV series, McWhorter writes, “This show was a paragon of the genre and starred three spectacular performers.” There were four stars on the…

I appreciate the good turn of a phrase, expressions of speech local to a region of the country, knowing the etymological origin of words, and many other things about language and dialogue. And if one lives long enough, one becomes witness to the changes that are ever ongoing. Lexicographers document our changing use of words even as the take on the exact opposite meanings over time – for example,…