Hello readers. It's been a while. I was abroad last semester in Argentina. Needless to say, I'm excited to get back to blogging. At some point I'm hoping to write about the linguistic points of interest...

Welcome to Whittiom of the Week, where we wonder why we say what we say at Whitman. So what is a whittiom, anyway? You guessed it––it's an idiom that Whitties use frequently. An idiom, put simply,...

How can language be used to oppress? Indeed, a very big question with many different answers, all of which a single blog post can't cover. But to start, it could be said that society and its institutions...

Hello readers. As this semester begins, I would like to make some changes to this blog. Last semester, I started writing without much of a focus. I knew language would be my topic, but beyond that I had...

English is constantly growing and changing. No matter what rules are established, they get broken; conventions of grammar change, new words are invented, and old ones take on new meanings. Take the word...

What is American cuisine? Hamburgers, apple pie and barbecue are distinctly American. But many other foods that Americans eat, we do not call American. Pizza, for example, is Italian, despite being widely...

After a relaxing 4-day break, Tuesday evening was finally upon me. I wrote this: "When I got out of class on Friday afternoon, I envisioned myself spending the majority of 4-day break at my desk, intently...

I find that people will often evoke adages when they have no specific evidence, so appeals to a common ethos. If the listener genuinely agrees with the cultural value being referenced, there is nothing...

"Over a long period of time, the main force in favor of greater equality has been the diffusion of knowledge and skills." ––Thomas Piketty in Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the most thorough...

Ari Appel's blog "What's In a Name?" comments on linguistic trends at Whitman College and in public culture at large. A group of middle-schoolers are crowded around a table for school lunch. Jimmy coats...

Ari Appel's blog "What's In a Name?" examines linguistic trends at Whitman College and in public culture at large. "Sorry," my friend said. We had been walking across Ankeny, catching up post-summer,...