The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price.

Every time a new slang word gets coined on the Internet, linguist Adam Aleksic is thrilled. “It’s definitely good for me in that I stay in business,” says Aleksic, who studies the origins of words and ...

Plus: the US has paused technology export restrictions to China This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology ...