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David Astle

David Astle

David Astle is the crossword compiler and Wordplay columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He is a broadcaster on ABC Radio Melbourne.

For better or worse, there’s wiggle room in our squiggles.

Do you hunker or bunker down? A word expert answers your questions

Our language teems with these close cousins, like wiggle or wriggle room.

  • David Astle

Latest

Barbie-coded: Sabrina Carpenter

From Sabrina Carpenter to J.Lo, when did everything get so code-coded?

Charting the rise of the suffix of the moment.

  • David Astle
Show me the way to Peter the Swede.

Do you live in one of Australia’s most oddly named towns?

Show me the way to Peter the Swede.

  • David Astle
Note the quotations.

“Wuthering Heights”: The strokes that changed the moors

How tiny strokes of punctuation are rebranding the moors – and our reality.

  • David Astle
Catherine O’Hara as Moira Rose in a scene from Schitt’s Creek.

Schitt’s speak: How Catherine O’Hara turned the dictionary into a diva

Name any episode and you’ll meet the winsome litany of mercurial Moira-isms, winsome and mercurial included.

  • David Astle
The puzzle’s fans are pondering the question: is Wordle running out of words?

Wordle just repeated a solution – and fans now fear the worst

The puzzle’s fans are pondering the question: is Wordle running out of words?

  • David Astle
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Spotify has more than 1300 musical genres – and glitch, wrock and zeuhl are not the weirdest

From Kobaian space operas to Javanese onomatopoeia, an audit reveals some interesting music styles.

  • David Astle
A Jessica-heavy generation has hijacked the narrative.

Millennials have finally found their own villain: Meet Jessica

She’s the aggressively earnest, almond-milk-coded successor to the throne, wearing a crisp linen blouse and ankle boots.

  • David Astle
Moose Emil who roamed Lower Austria in 2024.

Forget skibidi: Why Austria fell for a moose and Iceland crowned a parking fine

Take a trip through the world’s weirdest Words of the Year – from Danish “iron fields” to Portugal’s year of the blackout. And not a 67 in sight.

  • David Astle
The grammar errors that drive readers to distraction.

Lay down or lie down? The grammar errors that drive readers to distraction

From 100 per cent to the ancient origins of the “parting shot”, these are linguistic quirks that keep readers up at night.

  • David Astle