Language
Speccie reader Alan has asked me to explain ‘toxic masculinity’ adding ‘why is there never any mention of toxic femininity?’.…
Language
Speccie reader John is puzzled by an American expression that we’ve heard only recently in Australia: when a politician is…
Language
Kamala Harris keeps telling us she wants ‘equity’ not ‘equality.’ What does she mean? She is using ‘equality’ to means…
Language
There are times when I am tempted to think that English, in general terms, is richer and more colourful than…
Language
A Speccie reader has been in touch to complain about the use of the expressions ‘wind farm’ and ‘solar farm’.…
Language
A fellow Speccie writer asked me about what he called the ‘absurd equivalence’ being drawn between ‘anti-Semitism’ and ‘Islamophobia’. He…
Language
If you haven’t come across it before, let me introduce you to ‘linguistic engineering’. This useful expression has been around…
Language
In the light of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump we need to look at this term ‘assassination’. The core…
Language
Angry people keep chanting ‘Free Palestine’ on our streets. They shout that ‘Palestine’ should stretch from the Jordan River to…
Language
I’ve been searching through the language used to describe the train wreck of a presidential debate between Joe Biden and…
Language
How are you enjoying dealing with the bureaucrats who run our lives these days? (I heard your answer, and you…
Language
My thanks to Speccie reader Ian from Cairns for suggesting that the members of the Albanese government are post turtles.…
Language
A Speccie reader asks for a word that explains the obsessions of the woke around us. Looking for a single…
Language
This is an appeal to Speccie readers to join a modest campaign to ban the use of ‘begs the question’.…
Language
Here’s one to add to your Weird Word collection: ‘empleomania’. This is a mania for holding public office. and there…
Language
The word ‘colonialism’ has become (at least for some people) a ‘snarl word’ – something that is always bad, and…
Language
If your younger acquaintances start referring to you (or anything you do) as ‘mid’ they are not being polite. For…
Language
Speccie reader Terry writes to ask when and where did ‘non-binary’ come into the language – and who applied it…
Language
The expression ‘non-racist’ is still missing from most of the world’s major dictionaries (Oxford, Merriam-Webster, Collins, Macquarie) but perhaps this…
Language
Writing in the current issue of Quadrant magazine, Paul Prociv says, ‘The field of Aboriginal affairs is awash with sloppy…
Language
The University of Chicago has what it calls a ‘Parrhesia Program for Public Discourse’ – aimed at teaching students to…
Language
We all know what it means when someone is said to have been ‘thrown under the bus’ by their colleagues…
Language
Raymond from Nedlands, WA, asks for the meaning of ‘identity politics’. Searching through various sources, I can provide a one-word…
Language
We wordsmiths have a principle that ‘a text without a context is a pretext’. This matters because of what some…
Language
In last week’s edition of The Speccie our esteemed editor repeated a widely believed urban myth about the origin of…
