Ben Zimmer

Ben Zimmer is a contributing editor at The Atlantic.

Google's Ngram Viewer Goes Wild

With the addition of wildcard search-term capabilities, Google's fabulous language-analysis tool gets even more powerful.
- Ben Zimmer
- Oct 17, 2013
Bigger, Better Google Ngrams: Brace Yourself for the Power of Grammar

An update to Google's Ngram Viewer gives us a much deeper portrait of how English is changing, but still has some weaknesses.
- Ben Zimmer
- Oct 18, 2012
The Rise of the Zuckerverb: The New Language of Facebook

This is what happens when language is optimized for social data-mining rather than natural communication
- Ben Zimmer
- Sep 30, 2011
The Corpus in the Court: 'Like Lexis on Steroids'

Say goodbye to the dictionary definition. Courts, long dependent on the vagaries of language, have new quantitative tools they can use to precisely pin down how words are used.
- Ben Zimmer
- Mar 4, 2011
Is It Time to Welcome Our New Computer Overlords?

Is Watson, despite its limitations, a precursor to a HAL-esque machine that can mimic natural language, if not reproduce it?
- Ben Zimmer
- Feb 17, 2011

Google's Ngram Viewer Goes Wild