Category Archives: Articles

"Believe in better." "In search of incredible." The advertising craze of making nouns out of adjectives has become overdone "Grammar play is like free verse, splatter painting or low-fi music. The first to get to the idea grabs attention just by … Continue reading →

Language, of course, plays a role at Eurovision. "Ethnicity" in Europe is often linguistic: an ethnic Russian is not apparent on the streets of Riga until he opens his mouth. Linguistic neighbors will tend to be generous to one another. … Continue reading →

As the world grows more confusing, demand for clever consultants is booming ELITE management consultancies shun the spotlight. They hardly advertise: everyone who might hire them already knows their names. The Manhattan office that houses McKinsey & Company does not … Continue reading →

COMPANIES need to make the best returns on the assets they have in hand. But what if a company does not know that it has them, or whether it can use them? In some cases a lawsuit could be a … Continue reading →

A bit of news that has kept me busy enough not to post much here recently: in July, I’ll be moving to Berlin to take up a new posting as The Economist‘s Central Europe business and finance correspondent. 

MID DEVON District Council, which governs local affairs in a small bit of southwestern England, recently took Britain by storm. How? Outrage at local authority plans to abolish apostrophe [Guardian] Council ‘murders’ apostrophe in street-sign row [Scotsman] End of the … Continue reading →

The Economist this week published a package on liberalizing America’s lawyers: a leader on why more variety and choice would help both lawyers and their clients, my report on Jacoby & Myers’ fight for the right to take non-lawyer investors, and a … Continue reading →

My conversation with the psychologist and researcher on language, violence and other parts of human nature can be seen here.

At The Economist‘s Ideas Economy conference in Mexico City, November 2012. 

Money and back-room politicking are contaminating the selection of judges PETER COOK, a British comedian, once portrayed a slow-witted miner musing that he would have become a judge, “but I never ’ad the Latin.” Alas, in America, he might have … Continue reading →