Calling from the Greek island of Crete, a retired English teacher named Beth asks about using of amount of instead of numberof when it comes to such phrases as the amount of people or the amount of eggs. The traditional distinction is that amount applies to mass nouns, or uncountable things, and number is used with count nouns, or things that can be counted. In everyday speech, however, it’s fine to relax about this rule. This is part of a complete episode.
Two words from the 2025 Scripps National Spelling Bee prep materials: avahi, a term for a woolly lemur of Madagascar, and saltigrade, which describes spiders and other creatures that have feet and limbs adapted for leaping. Saltigrade is...
Louie from Black Hills, South Dakota, recalls the time his girlfriend fell off a paddleboard and into a lake, at which point his father declared She bit the farm! This peculiar locution is most likely his dad’s own combination of two...
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