If your handwriting leaves something to be desired, you could apologize for your chicken scratchings. But there’s a more precise term: griffonage, which has nothing to do with the mythical griffin, though the two sound alike. Griffonage comes from...
George from Maple Grove, Minnesota, was driving through West Virginia and stopped at Grandview outside Beckley. The view of the New River Gorge was indeed so grand that he texted a picture to friends and family with the message, What a gorgeous view...
Jasmine from Miami, Florida, asks about the word boo as a term of endearment, as in Alicia Keys’ song “My Boo.” This use of boo has been especially common in Black English since the 1980s, occupying the same affectionate space as honey or baby. The...
Default as a noun and default as a verb are the same word, with a familiar English stress shift: nouns often take first-syllable stress, while verbs often take second-syllable stress, as with the different pronunciations of record. A New York City...
Yasha, who grew up speaking Russian, recalls phrase used to comfort a child after a small mishap like a skinned knee. The phrase translates as “It will heal in time for the wedding,” and Yasha had assumed it was solely Slavic. So he was surprised to...
The word budget derives from French bougette, “leather bag.” An old phrase in English to open one’s budget, meant “to speak one’s mind.” The word purse is related to French bourse, a word for the stock market. This is part of a complete episode...
