The Renaissance City's claim as a Scrabble hotbed is well-lettered, thanks to Rich Lupo, whose maven status is delineated in Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players, by the WSJ's Stefan Fatsis, a long-ago colleague of N4N.

Now, BeloBlog has this:

I tend to agree with those who say that English is already the official US language, and that learning it is a requirement for sucess in this country.

A forum at Roger Williams University will take up the topic tonight:

BRISTOL – In a recent projection made by the Pew Research Center, 19 percent of the U.S. population will be foreign-born in the year 2050—that’s nearly one in five Americans.

Gee, who knew that the wire scribes had almost as much freedom as we Phoenix types in printing cuss words? (H/t Halperin). And did they ever write about this stuff when as salty and scatological a guy as LBJ was in the White House?

McCain's sharp tongue: an Achilles heel?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Temper, temper. Republican John McCain is known for his.

As you begin to think about plans for New Year's, the Phoenix's hyper-literate James Parker has some thoughts on "Don't Tase me, bro," and other top catch phrases of the departing year:

In 2007, they gave a monkey a typewriter, and he typed only two words: Chuck Norris. HA HA HA! Dear me . . . (dries eyes).