English as Our Official Language — Symbolic or Significant?: Q&A with Dr. Bill Rivers
On March 1, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order designating English — and only English — as the official language of the United States. The move has sparked both…
Choosing the 2023 Word of the Year: Q&A with Ben Zimmer and Kelly Wright
Since 1990, the American Dialect Society has annually unveiled a Word of the Year — a newly prominent word that reflects significant events, societal shifts, and prevailing themes over the…
What Makes a Great Love Song?
“The Love Song is the noise of love itself.” — Nick Cave, Australian musician (from a lecture delivered at the Atelierhaus der Akademie der Bildenden Kunste, Vienna on September 25,…
The Language Science Station at Planet Word
The following is a guest blog post written by Dr. Charlotte Vaughn and Hannah Mechtenberg. In this guest blog, we’re delighted to introduce you to the Language Science Station,…
Putin, Bush, and Pronouns: Presaging War?
Can linguistics help predict a war? This past weekend, Planet Word Advisor James Pennebaker and his colleagues Ryan Boyd and Ashwini Ashokkumar posted a short article on their blog, Wordwatchers,…
Empathy, Art, and Telling Important Stories: Q&A with Jason Reynolds
Long Way Down—Jason Reynolds’s bestselling novel in verse—makes its way to the Kennedy Center. Reynolds, a member of Planet Word’s Advisory Board, talked to us about empathy, the theatrical adaptation…
