If you’ve landed here via search engine, welcome! For the last six months most of my writing has been published on Substack. That’s where you’ll find:
All about Veblen goods (and Thorstein Veblen, for whom they’re named)
Discovering Asian brands at San Francisco’s liveliest shopping center
Critiques of three brand names: Nuvet, TRYP, and Navier
And lots more! Subscribe—it’s free!
I also continue to publish on Medium. Recent stories include:
The triumph of the swears: Why naughty words dominated the Word of the Year vote
And because squaw is back in the news because Fresno County (California) leaders are refusing to remove the word from a local place name, here’s a gift link to my 2021 story about the valley of the S-word.
You can read all of my Medium stories with an annual membership—just $50—that also gives you access to everything else published on Medium.
Happy almost-2024! I've got some new writing on Substack:
And here’s a friend link to my recently published Medium story: “How to Enjoy Going to the Movies.”
My fifteenth annual words of the year (WotY) post has moved! You can now find all of my WotY picks, from enshittification to sprinkle sprinkle, in my Substack newsletter. You’ll find links to all my previous WotY lists there, too.
Read all about greedflation on my Substack newsletter! And while you’re there, check out some other recent posts: on the -pilled suffix (redpilled, blackpilled, breadpilled, glitterpilled); on Phoebe Philo (what a name!); on pastness, a new-to-me word that isn’t new at all; on Kim Kardashian’s Ultimate Nipple Bra; and on the ubiquitous, ridiculous ’tis the season, which I’m not even a little bit jolly about.
And look: Here’s my November linkfest, now called a linkstack!
Wondering why I’ve moved over there? Here’s an explanation.
For Halloween, I wrote about ghost- compounds, from ghost bike to ghost word. Subscribe to my Substack to read the post!