Fans of The Great British Bake Off (known in the U.S. as The Great British Baking Show because of a trademark issue) know that you don’t want your baked goods to be stodgy or claggy. The verb to stodge, meaning “to stuff,” goes back some 400 years...
Barbara Kingsolver’s book Demon Copperhead is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield set in today’s Appalachia. Martha shares memories of a long-ago visit to Kingsolver’s family farm in Virginia, where they discussed many of the same...
Jeff in Virginia Beach, Virginia, is married to a woman from Barcelona who grew up speaking British English. She pointed out to him his use of the word of with the preposition off, as in Take the book off of the table or Let’s get off of the highway...
A magnificent new book celebrates the richness and diversity of 450 years of written and spoken English in what is now the United States. It’s called The People’s Tongue, and it’s a sumptuous collection of essays, letters, poems, lyrics, and much...
The People’s Tongue: Americans and the English Language (Bookshop|Amazon) reflects 450 years of English as it has been spoken and written in what is now the United States. Edited by Ilan Stavans, this anthology of original texts—essays, articles...
Samantha, a Latin teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio, is curious about why some people say bread and butter after two people walking together pass by on either side of an object in their path or try to avoid being split. (An example occurs in a 1960...
