Sure, there’s winter, spring, summer, and fall. But the seasons in between have even more poetic names. In Alaska, greenup describes a sudden, dramatic burst of green after a long, dark winter. And there are many, many terms for a cold snap that...
Ben Yagoda’s new book Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English, based on his blog Not One-Off Britishisms, which features words and phrases that are originally British but are being used more and more in the States, including cushy...
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 made-up words such as...
Generally speaking, the color that’s a blend of black and white is most often spelled gray in the U.S. and grey in the UK, although both spellings existed side by side for many years, and in fact, 18th-century British lexicographer Samuel Johnson...
Leah, a college student in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, asks: Does biweekly mean “twice a week” or “once every two weeks”? In British English, fortnightly specifies “once every two weeks.” But biweekly is what’s known as a skunked term, because it’s...
Andrew from Williamsburg, Virginia, asks about the verb mooch, which in Britain can mean wandering around shops or browsing without a firm plan to buy. In American English, mooch more often means cadging, sponging, or getting something from someone...