A magnificent new book celebrates the richness and diversity of 450 years of written and spoken English in what is now the United States. It’s called The People’s Tongue, and it’s a sumptuous collection of essays, letters, poems...
When Ana first arrived in the United States from Hungary, she was taken aback when someone greeted her with the idiomatic expression How’s it hanging?. She was also puzzled by the expression trim the tree meaning to “adorn a Christmas...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski is puzzling over demonyms, those names people who reside in a particular area. For example, someone who lives in Brooklyn, New York, is a Brooklynite. People who live in Boston, Massachusetts, are called Bostonians, but what...
Samantha, a Latin teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio, is curious about why some people say bread and butter after two people walking together pass by on either side of an object in their path or try to avoid being split. (An example occurs in a 1960...
Latin phrases are commonly misused, but there’s perhaps no better example than Vampire Butters’ butchering of per se, which simply means “in itself,” in this episode of South Park. This is part of a complete episode.
If something pertains to a whole system or body, is it holistic or wholistic? Despite that tempting “w,” holistic is the correct term. It’s an example of folk etymology, the result of looking at the word whole and assuming that...