John Bolton says the president is surrounded with responsible advisers, but an ‘axis’ needs more than just a circle

The World Health Organization has identified addiction to video games as a psychological disorder. But critics say WHO’s criteria are too vague

In the year of Harvey Weinstein and Wonder Woman, of ‘collusion’ and even more ‘fake news’, Steven Poole assesses the lexical novelties

How the term ‘groupthink’ is a classic example of a rhetorical intervention designed to shut down argument before it even starts

What’s the difference between a Nazi and a white supremacist, antifa and alt-left? Steven Poole deconstructs the new political discourse

As candidates Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron go head to head, the language is Trumped up on the one hand and fuelling fear on the other

Brexit may sound sexy, but a more accurate name for the Vote Leave campaign would be ‘UKsodoff’

Donald Trump’s dazzlingly vague speeches are a far cry from the carefully engineered soundbites of most political rhetoric. So what exactly is he doing?

Yaas, the lumbersexuals were on fleek, but it was an emoji that brought tears of joy to this year’s big dictionary symposium of lexical additions

Being radical is excellent. Unless you are the wrong sort of radical – an adherent, say, of ‘radical Islam’. How do we know when ‘radical’ means something nice and when it means something nasty?

It’s not just a comical apology for trivial moaning and an enjoyable internet meme – there’s also something darker going on

What gives with hot takes - flip, instant opinions, which websites claim they are resisting? And why are we so fond of ‘takes’ on things in the first place?

We’re either overexcited or overanxious. We’re never tired, any more, we’re overtired. What exactly is going on?

Politicians talk about policy offers, creatives ask ‘What’s the offer here’?’ It’s a sign of the supermarketisation of our language – and it’s an offer I can refuse

Aspiration is breathing, or breathing into: in the earliest usages it was the sort of thing God did to people. It is probably unfair to complain Miliband couldn’t do it

Are you a Cameronette or more of a Milifan? Do you like to flex your work in a balanced way? Steven Poole on creative verb use, spads and spin

From ‘family owned’ and ‘created with love’, to ‘hand crafted’ and ‘authentic’, food-packet rhetoric is now mainly in the business of selling nice feelings

The phrase ‘slippery slope’ is used all the time in public debate, but the argument behind it is a fallacy