In case you haven’t been following me on Twitter or elsewhere, I’m the newest regular contributor to Visual Thesaurus. You can see my contributor page here. My latest article, “Orwell and Singular ‘They'”, grew out of an experience I had last summer as I was writing a feature article on singular they for Copyediting. I cited George Orwell in a list of well-regarded authors who reportedly used singular they, and my copyeditor queried me on it. She wanted proof.

I did some research and made a surprising discovery: the alleged Orwell quotation in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage wasn’t really from Orwell. But if you want to know the rest, you’ll have to read the article. (It’s for subscribers only, but a subscription is only $19.95 per year.)

But if you’re not the subscribing type, don’t worry: I’ll have a new post up today or tomorrow on the oft-maligned construction reason why.