When you’re distracted by trying to get the perfect photo at a wedding or fiddling with your camera during a solar eclipse, you’re missing out on some of the experience itself. There’s a term for this: It’s called overshadowing. Plus one of Lionel...
Hundreds of years ago, the word girl didn’t necessarily mean a female child — in the 14th and 15th centuries, it could refer to a child of either sex. Only later did its meaning become more specific. • Some people think that referring to a former...
Listeners respond to our discussion about what to call a baby shower for the dad-to-be, suggesting Huggies and chuggies, beer shower, beer for diapers, diaper kegger, baby boot camp, and Baby Fat Tuesday. This is part of a complete episode...
We often hear that English is going to hell in a handbasket. Actually, though, linguistic handwringing about sinking standards and sloppy speech has been going on for centuries – at least as far back as the 1300’s! And: language also changes to fit...
Learning that fat meat is greasy, which means learning something the hard way, is a common idiom used almost exclusively in the African-American community, and refers to a juicy cut of the pig called fatmeat. Linguist Geneva Smitherman has a great...
Teaching our children, and some advice for writers. Suppose your child is eager to tackle a difficult subject–ancient Greek, for example–but you know his reach exceeds his grasp? The challenge is to support the child’s curiosity without squelching...