Have you noticed that your teenager’s voice sounds unnaturally low and gravelly, like a door on rusty hinges or a quacking duck? Does it annoy you? You’ve probably detected vocal fry, or what ...

When I taught linguistics to undergraduates, I would start each semester off by asking students what sort of assumptions they would they make about a speaker who said, "I ain't got no money." The ...

Last week, Slate Lexicon Valley podcaster (and NPR On the Media host) Bob Garfield lamented a frightening tic invading American speech. It appears “almost exclusively among women, and young women at ...