Need a way to select someone from a group to be a recipient of something? Horsengoggle it! Kids have been horsengoggling for a long time, and sometimes children start out this counting game in German, with Einz, Zwei, Drei, Horsengoggle! No one...
Malamute, kayak, and parka are just some of the words that have found their way into English from the language of indigenous people in northern climes. • In the 1970s, some scientists argued that two quarks should be called truth and beauty. • The...
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...
We’ve talked before about how names of our pets often evolve over time. Cartoonist Scott Metzger captured this idea in a drawing of a Nickname Support Group for dogs and cats. This is part of a complete episode.
When a member of our Facebook Group named Melody jokingly dubbed herself as Highway to Mel — an homage to the AC/DC song “Highway to Hell” — Quiz Guy John Chaneski found a musical hook for this puzzle, which requires blending a...
Michael from Sherman Oaks, California, says that as a teacher in New Jersey in the 1980s, he heard students saying My word is born, meaning “You better believe me,” and later shortened to simply word. The research of linguist Geneva...