Diane in Frankfort, Kentucky, says her mother always pronounced the word wash with an R sound in it. This pronunciation of wash as “warsh” reflects what linguists call the intrusive R or excrescent R, a form of what’s known as...
Favorite online reading. If the subjunctive tense were to disappear from English, would anybody care? And just in time for this romantic weekend, a caller discovers the meaning of…lurve. That’s L-U-R-V-E.
What’s lurve got to do with it? A caller is puzzled by a greeting card with the phrase “crazy cosmic lurve god.” Linguistics fans will fan themselves as Grant explains the roots of this expression with linguistic terms like the...