A San Antonio, Texas, man says his six-year-old son wonders: If the plural of house is houses, why is the plural of mouse mice? And why is the plural of tooth teeth? These plurals are vestiges of a time when the middle vowel sound in some nouns...
The words flet and dray (or drey,) refer to types of squirrel’s nests. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Flet and Dray” I learned this week that a flet is sort of the same thing as a dray. A flet, F-L-E-T, and a...
The hell in hello has nothing to do with the Devil’s abode. The word is related to similar shouts of greeting, such as hallo or halloa. Several languages have similar exclamations, such as Swedish hej, which sounds like English hey. This is...
The English language includes several words deriving from Arabic, such as coffee, sugar, and giraffe. Another is ghoul, which comes from an Arabic term for a “shapeshifting demon.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
The idiom safe and sound tells the story of the English language in three words: safe comes from French, and sound is a Germanic word with the same root as Gesundheit, meaning “health.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
When something’s in its heyday, its in its prime. What does that have to do with hay? Nothing, actually. It goes back to the 1500s, when heyday and similar-sounding words were simply expressions of celebration or joy. Grant is especially fond...