Are Emojis Language?

Whether you love them or hate them, you have to admit, emojis have taken over. Following the latest update by the Unicode Consortium, the body that dictates language on digital devices, there are now 1,085 officially-recognized emojis in circulation. Five years after their introduction in the United States, emojis have started to dominate messaging and social media apps.

15 Words Invented by Shakespeare

Guest post from Mignon Fogarty

The 452nd anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth is coming. He is not only known as a timeless playwright, but also as a prolific inventor of words. Although modern researchers have found that some words originally attributed to him, such as puke, have earlier sources, there are still many that hold up today as Shakespeare’s creations according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

What Is the Singular They, and Why Should I Use It?

Last year, Grammarly polled our social audiences to see if they supported gender-neutral pronoun usage. The results were a bit surprising: more than half of the audience polled felt that the idea of gender-neutral pronouns was a nonstarter.

With this knowledge, I’d like to make an appeal to our audience: consider the singular they. Language has changed a lot in the last year, with the singular they being voted the most important word of the year, and numerous dictionaries adding gender-neutral usage notes.

3 Trends That Will Dominate English Writing in 2017

Any way you slice it, 2016 has been a tough year.

We lost beloved novelists like Harper Lee and Gloria Naylor; lyricists like David Bowie, Prince, and Leonard Cohen; and book-character-embodying actors like Alan Rickman and Gene Wilder.

We expressed a dip in mood in our writing online. One study by social media analytics company Crimson Hexagon showed that popular retail holidays like Black Friday experienced a rise in negative sentiment in 2016, despite rosy predictions.

Why Text Messaging is Butchering Grammar

Guest post from Emily Green

Well, it took a decade, but it’s finally happened. People text so much that they’ve forgotten how to use proper grammar. What’s worse, it seems like the general population is accommodating them. This needs to stop. Let’s look at why text messaging is butchering grammar and what we can do to stop it.

Typing Shorthand is the Popular Style

You may not know what shorthand is by its name, but you’ve definitely seen it.

Where Do Ninjas, Zombies, and Robots Come From?

English is a language made up almost entirely of other languages. Between the fifth and seventh centuries, tribes from lands that would become Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands showed up in Britain. The languages they spoke developed into Middle English, butted heads with Old Norman (pre-French), and, in Shakespeare’s time, got a dose of Latin and Ancient Greek. Along the way, individual words from a host of other languages were added to the mix.

Alright or All Right—Which Is Correct?

People are often surprised to learn that alright is not an accepted spelling of all right. Although the one-word spelling of alright is seen in informal writing, teachers and editors will always consider it incorrect. To use the expression with impunity, it is best to spell it as two words: all right.

It’s possible that you stared at your paper in wonder the first time your English teacher marked alright as an incorrect spelling.

Humanity’s Best Eggcorn Examples

When singers use backing tracks to sing less (or not at all) during a performance, they have to do what is called “lip singing”—mouthing the words without actually making sound. Old-timer’s disease is a terrible illness that affects people’s ability to think, remember, and control their behavior. A mute point is an issue that could be argued, but could also have very little consequence.