How long do you have to remain in a place before you can truthfully say you lived there, as opposed to just visiting it? What’s the difference between to live somewhere and to stay somewhere? This philosophical question is complicated by the fact that in some dialects, the word stay means the same thing as live, as in Where do you stay? meaning the same thing as Where do you live?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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