The profession’s taste for tortured verbiage comes from a desire to be taken seriously. But does it matter if no one actually reads their work?

My Latinist father and I always disagreed about language. Then I got old

It’s clear when language is sexist—except when the people you’re talking about disagree

Copy editors have lives outside of punctuation—but also, I love commas

The number of mistakes signals that important people don’t know what they’re doing—and couldn’t care less

The Canadian Oxford can be a writer’s best friend—if they understand its limitations

The media should not help white nationalists rebrand bigotry

It’s tempting to mock the way Trump speaks — but doing so plays right into his tiny hands

Resistance is futile—just split your infinitives, already

The web may be a pedant’s paradise, but there are good reasons to keep your asterisks to yourself