It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
How do social media algorithms shape the way we communicate? A new book argues that the competition for clicks is changing the way we speak and write, from the so-called “YouTube accent” to the surprising evolution of the word preppy. Also: A...
June in Miami, Florida, says every time she hears the name of this show, she’s reminded of a story that involves the tradition of fruit-filled Easter buns in her native Jamaica. She’d put hers on a windowsill at work, but at some point when she left...
Words of wisdom from G.K. Chesterton: The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder. This is part of a complete episode.
Bonnie in Jacksonville, Florida, is in search of a term that has to do with rain adhering under the eaves. She’s sure she once heard such an expression. There’s water adhesion and surface tension, as well as the Coanda effect, but none of those...
Besides the Use Ya Blinkah roadside sign seen in Massachusetts, seasonal messages on digital highway signs have included the Halloween-themed Hocus Pocus—Drive with Focus and the Fourth of July admonition Don’t Drive Star-Spangled Hammered...