If you take your finger and run it down your breastbone, and the end, there’s a little pit. In the 15th century, that little hollow just after the bone was called the heartspoon. This indentation is also called the pit of the stomach, or epigastric...
Science journalist Laura Spinney’s new book Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global (Bookshop|Amazon) shows how lots of languages as diverse as Hindi, Italian, and English all stem from a single prehistoric ancestral tongue. A basic word for the...
Broken pieces of pottery, commonly known as shards, are also referred to as sherds by professional archaeologists. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Shards and Sherds” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Ben. Hi, Ben. How...
A North Carolina man says he was surprised as a child when he did a chore for his grandmother, and the Yankee dime she promised him turned out to be a peck on the cheek. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Paid with a Yankee Dime”...
Many of the world’s languages apparently derived from a prehistoric common ancestor known as Indo-European. But since no one ever wrote down a word of it, how do we know what it was like?
trowel fodder n.— «It will be possible for people who have some excavation experience to come as volunteers. In these cases there will be no formal tuition provided. However, this does not simply mean that they will be used as trowel fodder!» —“Re:...
