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 epenthesis, or the...
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 intrusive R and...