Susan in Traverse City, Michigan, wonders if there’s a single English word that denotes the relationship between two mothers-in-law, two fathers-in-law, or a mother-in-law and father-in-law. Co-mother seems too vague, and the...
In northern Sweden, the word yes is widely communicated by a sound that’s reminiscent of someone sucking through a straw. It’s called the pulmonic ingressive. Linguist Robert Eklund calls this a neglected universal, meaning that...
The Stendhal syndrome is a term used to describe feeling overwhelmed by the beauty of a work of art. The name comes from the French writer Stendhal, who wrote about the dizzying sensation of seeing the art in Florence. It’s somewhat similar to...
We need a common word for “the parents of your son-in-law or daughter-in-law.” Although English has the word affines, it’s rarely used outside of such fields as anthropology or psychiatry. Other languages have more commonly used...
Is there a word for a word that doesn’t fit its own definition? For example, verb is a noun, and monosyllabic is polysyllabic. Come to think of it, why is it so hard to remember how to spell mnemonic? This is part of a complete episode.
A man who takes daily walks in the woods of upstate New York wants a word for the whooshing of the pines high above their heads. The hosts suggest the Latin-based word susurration, although they might also have suggested soughing. This is part of a...