Check out Lapham's Quarterly

Essays

Native Tongues Simon Winchester recounts the more than forty-year journey of The Dictionary of Regional American English, a compendium of regional slang that publishes its final volume this year. More Essays

Essays

Body Language From the wave to the shrug to the digitus impudicus, Arika Okrent breaks down the history and the subtleties of the ways we gesture. More Essays

Voices in Time

2011: To the Barricades "Everyone come to Tahrir now we need you we are no less than 10,000 and no more police." More Voices in Time

Voices in Time

1518: Luther Goes Viral "You wonder I did not tell you of my Theses. But I did not wish to have them widely circulated." More Voices in Time

Reconsiderations

Word for Word The thesaurus is a book that is both praised and reviled among writers, useful to some and useless to others. Ben Zimmer traces Roget's original mission to create order out of linguistic chaos. More Reconsiderations

Lapham's Quarterly