The words tough, through, and dough all end in O-U-G-H. So why don’t they rhyme? A lively new book addresses the many quirks of English by explaining the history of words and phrases. And: have you ever been in a situation where a group makes...
From ancient Greece comes this example of an indefinite hyperbolic numeral such as umpteen, zillion, and fifty-eleven: psammakosioi. Aristophanes coined this term, which was picked up by other ancient writers, and literally means “sand...
MaryAnne from Dallas, Texas, says that sometimes when she or her siblings asked her father how much he spent on something he’d answer A buck three-eighty. It’s one of many similar expressions that allow the speaker to give an approximate...
Robin in Yuma, Arizona, asks about the origin of the expression fifty-eleven, which she grew up using to suggest “a large, indeterminate number.” The older and more common version is forty-eleven. Such words as fifty-eleven, forty...