Quiz Guy John Chaneski insists that the names of modern Olympic sports resulted from changing one letter in the original names for each activity. For example, he says, the pole vault must have originated from an earlier sport in which participants...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski is pondering the degrees offered by various colleges and universities — or at least, the degrees those institutions should offer, considering their names. For example, at what Ivy League school might you expect a course...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s puzzle is proof positive that words aren’t always what they seem, especially words that begin with the letters re-. For example, say John was driving along a road and turned right, then drove a little more and...
She sells seashells by the seashore. Who is the she in this tongue twister? Some claim it’s the young Mary Anning, who went on to become a famous 19th-century British paleontologist. Dubious perhaps, but the story of her rise from seaside...
You may have a favorite word in English, but what about your favorite in another language? The Spanish term ojalá is especially handy for expressing hopefulness and derives from Arabic for “God willing.” In Trinidad, if you want to ask...
Ribbon fall. Gallery forest. You won’t find terms like these in most dictionaries, but they and hundreds like them are discussed by famous writers in the book Home Ground: A Guide to the American Landscape. The book is an intriguing collection...
