The New Oxford American Dictionary's publishers have chosen the 2009 word of the year.

We work very fast these days with diminished resources, and sometimes my word nerd proclivities have to wait until I am off deadline. Lucky for me, I have shelves filled with dictionaries and usage books at home. I can indulge my need to know more about English.

A reader has an interesting point to make about a phrase that is all over the news these days:

"It is sad that Kilpatrick has given up writing his columns on usage.  If he were still writing, I am certain that he would by now have issued one of his 'injunctions' against the currently sickeningly popular cliche 'town hall meeting.'  If it ain't held in a bonafide town hall, call it a community meeting or a high school gym meeting or whatever it is."

The editors of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary have added about 100 words for the 2009 edition and to the dictionary online.

The latest installment in The N&O's Old North State series, Warrenton fights to regain lost glory, allows us a chance to use the lovely sounding word, antebellum.

When we speak of a group or a team coming together to form a cohesive whole or when we write about an idea becoming a concrete plan of action, we usually use the spelling jell for the verb. However, gel can also mean something has taken definite form.

I like to reserve gel, though, for congeled, as when a gelatin sets. The dessert gelled; the plans jelled.

Follow this link to a longer treatment of gel vs. jell.

A reader objects to loose usage on bring and take.

Amid all the hoopla over the Tar Heels' national basketball championship, a reader calls our attention to the difference between celebrant and celebrator.

Those who report the news often apply labels to terrible or urgent events: tragedy, disaster, crisis, emergency. Sometimes, those labels don't quite fit. We risk overstating the trouble.

A headline from today's newspaper, "U.S. drops 'enemy combatant' label; detainees remain," made me curious about the suffixes in "combatant" and "detainee." The meanings of the suffixes play essential roles in the meanings of the words created.