This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here. I love the way that people talk ...

In an episode of Hulu docuseries “The Kardashians,” matriarch and momager Kris Jenner posed a prescient etymological question to her daughter Khloe Kardashian in the midst of getting all dolled up.

Slang's role is shifting as digital culture spreads and dilutes new expressions quickly. Social media and AI have made slang more mainstream, reducing its power to signal belonging. Inventing personal ...

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a lot of talk about the “generation gap.” The gap was understood to be a matter of culture and values, but the reality is that much of it was just about language ...