Johnson, the language blog of The Economist, discusses the suspension of The New York Times Magazine‘s On Language column.
When Safire died several years ago, the column was taken up by Ben Zimmer, who took on the serious and the silly in language with wit and verve undergirded by a vast amount of knowledge. This blog has often found reason to rely on him. Now the column is no more; the magazine’s new editor axed it, along with several other features. Every new editor has the right to a shake-up, but with no disrespect to those others, though, “On Language” was a long-lived and beloved institution, the only place in American journalism where language was given such prominence. Cutting it was a mistake.
Read the rest here. (Related On Language column)