The makers of Downton Abbey take great care to recreate the look and feel of the period in which it is set. But occasionally anachronisms in the dialogue slip through.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Feb 13, 2012 - 123 comments

The Awl takes a look at how Twitter has allowed local slang to go global, and the unhappiness this causes for some.
posted by reenum on Oct 28, 2011 - 34 comments

Need an Idiom? Check out The Idiom Connection. Think certain phrases are such cliches that they should be banned? Before you condemn or mock them, take a moment to learn more about the origin of some of these phrases.
::via The Tower of English::
posted by anastasiav on Oct 7, 2003 - 8 comments

They might actually be, you know, be useful. This year, a student in Nebraska won $1000 for finding the worst example of overuse of the phrase 'you know,' by an athlete who said it 30 times in a 135 second interview. But are they really that terrible? Known as discourse markers, phrases such as 'you know' and 'I mean' are thought to be essential in conveying information in conversation and helping us understand each other. Discourse markers also exist in many other languages and possibly even ancient languages.
posted by adrianhon on May 15, 2002 - 25 comments

A Glossary of HardBoiled Slang will allow you to understand such wonderful, alliterative phrases as:

"You dumb mug, get your mitts off the marbles before I stuff that mud-pipe down your mush - and tell your moll to hand over the mazuma."

Welcome to the world of HardBoiled Fiction. Take some time to brush up on the classics.
posted by vacapinta on Apr 27, 2002 - 18 comments

I was talking to my wife this morning about one of the kids "bombing" a test at school, and she asked me, "Is that good or bad?" I said, "Bad, of course. You know, you bomb a test, that means either flunking it or close to it." She said, "No, not any more, like 'it's the bomb' or 'we bombed that hill' on skateboards. Bombing is a good thing." Certain words and phrases are changing their meanings. Have you found yourself tongue-tied?
posted by JParker on Oct 11, 2001 - 18 comments

The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy: An Interactive Study Since the development of carbonated beverage in 1886, one of linguistic geography's most important and least investigated phenomena has been the sharp regional divisions in the use of the terms "pop" and "soda."
posted by lagado on Apr 18, 2001 - 68 comments

Ooooh, those trendy young Brits and their funny new words. What I can't help wondering is how many people have been sending in made up slang. (via clog).
posted by davidgentle on Dec 14, 2000 - 22 comments