So you think you can spell? Youngsters in modern spelling bees are expected to memorize a wide range of words, from chemical processes to names of rare animals. Also: In many languages, the word for “mother” begins with the letter M — but not in all...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s puzzle this week involves pig Latin, a.k.a. Ig-pay Atin-lay. One of two answers to each clue is a regular English word, and the other is its pig Latin version. For example, what regular English word and its pig Latin version...
Carrie Ann and her cousin Danielle from Minneapolis, Minnesota, wonder about the pronunciation of the word rhetoric. Is the stress on the first syllable or the second? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Is Rhetoric Pronunciation...
If someone’s extremely annoyed or frustrated, you describe them with the idiomatic expression they’re fit to be tied. But where did this saying come from? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Fit to Be Tied, But How, and To What?”...
J.P. in Temecula, California, is a high schooler studying French and Spanish. He notes that the Spanish word con means “with” and English has some linguistically related words, such as congress, which suggests “coming together” and compress...
In Appalachia, if you ignore better choices before choosing a lesser one, such as a mate, you might be said to fly all over a daisy field and settle on a cow pile or flit like a butterfly from flower to flower and land on a cow crap. This is part of...