Are serial commas always necessary? An English teacher says she was surprised to learn that she and her husband, who’s also an English teacher, are giving their students conflicting advice.
Favorite online reading. If the subjunctive tense were to disappear from English, would anybody care? And just in time for this romantic weekend, a caller discovers the meaning of…lurve. That’s L-U-R-V-E.
We recommend books that make great gifts for language lovers, talk about footwear called go-aheads, and look further into going commando. Also, was the 2008 election a historic event or an historic event?
There are nearly 7,000 languages in the world today, and by some estimates, they’re dying off at the rate of one every week. What’s lost when a language dies? Martha and Grant discuss that question and efforts to record some endangered...
A native speaker of Spanish has a hard time with prepositions in English. Why do we say that someone’s “on my mind” but “in my heart”? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “On My Mind and In My...