Jonathan Saha is an associate professor of history at Durham University in England. His latest book is Colonizing Animals: Interspecies Empire in Myanmar (Bookshop|Amazon), which chronicles how the lives of animals were irrevocably changed by British imperialism. The dedication page is one that any ailurophile will appreciate. It reads For Toast, the cat, who was no help at all. This is part of a complete episode.
According to Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English (Bookshop|Amazon) by Ben Yagoda, the word smarmy, meaning “unctuous” or “ingratiating,” may come from a 19th-century magazine contest, in which readers sent in...
Mary Beth in Greenville, South Carolina, wonders: Why do we say four-oh-nine for the number 409 instead of four-zero-nine or four-aught-nine? What are the rules for saying either zero or oh or aught or ought to indicate that arithmetical symbol...
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