If you were following the U.S. presidential campaign in late summer, it was easy to imagine you'd switched channels and were watching "Animal Planet." Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin compared "hockey moms" to pit bulls (with the addition of lipstick), and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke of his rival John McCain's policies as "lipstick on a pig" (which he said meant "mere window dressing"). Continue reading...

Advice to aspiring writers usually includes these words: "Write more." More words. More pages. More chapters, poems, articles.

But I have a different suggestion: To become a better writer, write less.

No, not less frequently. But with fewer words. Lots fewer. As in... no more than 140 characters' worth.

What? And why? Continue reading...

Writing a book is hard: just ask any author. But coming up with a title for your book? That's easy.

Honestly.

Oh, you've probably heard a different story, about how choosing a book title is the toughest part of the whole endeavor. But I'm going to share with you a six-word secret for skipping directly to a happy ending: Find a formula and copy it. Continue reading...

Science education may be on the decline. The general level of scientific knowledge may be headed back to the Dark Ages. But the language of science has never been more popular.

Or more woefully abused. Continue reading...

Continuing our political theme this week, columnist Nancy Friedman takes a look at the buzzwords of the current campaign season. Her background in developing names and brands gives her a unique perspective into how new political coinages bubble to the surface. Continue reading...

In Part One and Part Two of this series I shared six tools that professional name developers use to turn words into business and product names. In this final installment I'll describe three more-advanced strategies. Don't worry: you don't need special training to use them. Just be aware that implementing them successfully is often trickier than you might think. Continue reading...