Karina from Maryville, Missouri, disagrees with her mom about whether bowl and bull sound the same. Karina hears them as the same sound, while her mom hears a clear difference. It’s an example of a vowel merger, or sound shift, that occurs in...
“Are we ready to order yet?” Why do restaurant servers use the word “we” when they’re not eating with you or helping you pay the bill? And a story of Cold War intrigue: A young saxophone player’s clever ruse to smuggle information past KGB...