A listener leaves us a voicemail about a sign his high school science teacher posted in the classroom to encourage students to keep the noise down. It read “Laboratory — more of the first 5, less of the last 7.” As in more of the first...
The long popular and newly legal-to-sing “Happy Birthday to You” has always been ripe for lyrical variations, particularly at the end of the song. Some add a “cha cha cha” or “forever more on Channel 4,” but a...
When is it okay to correct someone’s grammar? A listener from Madison, Wisconsin, says a friend went for a parent-teacher conference only to notice that a sign in the classroom read “Things your thankful for.” Should the teacher be...
Does a statement have to be true to be a fact? Eric in Dallas asks after his eight-year-old practices a school lesson contrasting fact and opinion, where a fact was described as something that can be proven true or false. Some dictionary senses do...
Andy from San Diego wonders why his students object when he pronounces bury with the vowel of jury or fury, rather than like berry. The word comes from Old English byrgan, and its modern spelling and pronunciation reflect different regional paths in...
A Texas caller says her child’s middle-school teacher insists that students should never begin a sentence with a preposition. The hosts are shocked, shocked. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Beginning with...