PLANET WORD.

• Author: Slade, Stephanie
• Position: MUSEUM

Language is the quintessential example of what Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek called a "spontaneous order": institutions that emerge through the uncoordinated, unplanned actions of many human beings. No one invented English; it bubbled up from below, the result of an infinite number of disparate decisions by people seeking to communicate in the pursuit of their own goals.

Washington, D.C, now has a museum dedicated to just this idea. Planet Word opened in late 2020 with a mission to "inspire and renew a love of words, language, and...