Allen Walker Read News Today

One reader of last week’s column on urban legends said the column “cracked her up,” so with that much enthusiasm for his efforts, Grammar Dog proposes more of the same,

There are a lot of rumors out there about the origins of the word "okay." We decided it was time to set things straight.

Despite OKs ubiquity, many people dont know the words behind this two-letter agreement.

Despite OKs ubiquity, many people dont know the words behind this two-letter agreement.

The fad for abbreviations like LOL is nothing new. In fact, this trend in the 1840s spawned the greatest abbreviation of all, "OK."

She had perhaps the largest personal dictionary collection in the world. It is certainly the most titillating.

According to Bill Brysons "Made in America", OK was at one time speculated to have meant "only kissing" or "only kidding"...

How the N-Word Became Unsayable John McWhorter, New York Times, April 30, 2021 In 1934, Allen Walker Read, an etymologist and lexicographer, laid out the history of the word that, then, had “the deepest stigma of any in the language.” In the entire article, in line with the strength of the taboo he was referring to, he never actually wrote the word itself. The obscenity to which he referred, “fuck,” though not used in polite company (or, typically, in this newspaper), is no longer verbo...

What People Say About 3QD "I look at your site every day. Its where the two cultures meet." — Suketu Mehta, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Maximum City, winner of the O. Henry Prize, and frequent contributor to various newspapers and magazines. "I have placed 3 Quarks Daily at the head of my list of web bookmarks." — Richard Dawkins, previously Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. "I look for relevant research, interesting themes and funn...

April 30, 2021 By John McWhorter Dr. McWhorter is a linguist who has written extensively about both race and language. He is the author, most recently, of “Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter,” from which this guest essay is adapted. This article contains obscenities and racial slurs, fully spelled out. Ezekiel Kweku, the Opinion politics editor, and Kathleen Kingsbury, the Opinion editor, wrote about how and why we came to the decision to publish these words in . In 1934, Allen Walker...