‘Thirst trap’ and ‘edgelord’ were added to the dictionary – so why hasn’t ‘nibling’ made the cut?

  A student in my graduate seminar recently mentioned seeing her “niblings” at Thanksgiving. Some of the students in my class were clearly familiar with the term. But others frowned, suggesting that they hadn’t heard the term before, or didn’t know what it meant.

  A nibling is the child of one’s brothers or sisters. The word is a blend of the “n” in “niece” and “nephew” with “sibling,” and it was coined in the early 1950s by linguist Samuel Martin.

Do accents disappear?

  In Boston, there are reports of people pronouncing the letter “r.” Down in Tennessee, people are noticing a lack of a Southern drawl. And Texans have long worried about losing their distinctive twang.

  Indeed, around the United States, communities are voicing a common anxiety: Are Americans losing their accents?

Y'all, that most Southern of Southernisms, is going mainstream – and it’s about time

  Southern Living magazine once described “y’all” as “the quintessential Southern pronoun.” It’s as iconically Southern as sweet tea and grits.

  While “y’all” is considered slang, it’s a useful word nonetheless. The English language doesn’t have a good second-person plural pronoun; “you” can be both singular and plural, but it’s sometimes awkward to use as a plural. It’s almost like there’s a pronoun missing. “Y’all” fills that second-person plural slot – as does “you guys,” “youse,” “you-uns” and a few others.

WTF? Slurs offend young adults more than swearing

  In 1972, the comedian George Carlin performed a comedy routine in which he listed the seven words you couldn’t say on television. He opined that profanity related to sexual activities, body parts, and bodily functions wasn’t inherently good or bad. All words, he would say, are “innocent.”

  But reciting those seven words in public got him arrested, and when a New York radio station aired Carlin’s performance, a man listening with his young son sued. The case led to the Supreme Court ruling six years later that broadcasting profanity can constitute a public nuisance.

Sam Fulwood III: The Intersection of pop culture and race

  My friend Ernie told me recently about a phone conversation that left him amazed at how powerfully and pervasively pop culture meanders willy-nilly across what he once imagined as impermeable racial boundaries.

  Ernie, an African American, lives happily and leisurely in retirement at his suburban Atlanta home, where he loves gardening and watching baseball on television. On all-too-rare occasions, he escapes his house for another lifelong passion: listening to classical music at the Atlanta Symphony. But he hasn’t done this in more than five years.

  A week or so ago, however, he received a call from a man trying sell him a subscription to the Atlanta Symphony.