What’s up with ketchup? The shifting history and spelling of the name of this condiment. For centuries, ketchup was a fishy sauce originating in Asia—the tomatoes came only later! Plus, a new book shows what’s lost when a language dies: when there...
If you pronounce short-lived with a long i, you’re saying it correctly– at least by the standards of the 1600’s. Today it’s far more commonly pronounced with a short i, though both pronunciations are acceptable. This is part...
Christina from Phoenix, Arizona, asks whether chai tea is redundant, since chai can mean tea in other languages. In U.S. English, chai has narrowed to mean solely a spiced tea, so chai tea works as a specific kind of tea rather than a mistake, no...
Although a few sticklers cling to the traditional pronunciation of short-lived with a long i, the vast majority of Americans now pronounce short-lived with a short i. Long live the latter, we say. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Denise in Webster, New Hampshire, asks about jonesing for, now ordinary slang for craving something badly. It comes from the speech of people using heroin, where jones was already current by 1962 and may go back to the 1950s. The word has done what...
David, a lawyer from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, subscribes to the Lexis Legal News Brief, and wonders about the connection between lex meaning “law,” and the lex which refers to “words.” While lexis refers to the total stock of...