New research published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology suggests that people who speak more than one languagetend to be less superstitious if they’re reading or thinking in a different language. This is part of a complete...
Have a question about objective pronouns? Whom ya gonna call? Wait–is that right? Or would it be “who ya gonna call”? “Whom” may be technically correct, but insisting on it can get you called an elitist. It’s...
When somebody sneezes, we say bless you or gesundheit. But suppose that person coughs. Are you supposed to say something — or are they? Plus, Mexican standoffs, gracious plenty, linguistic false friends, southpaw vs. northpaw, the slang of rabbit...
What the fox says may be a mystery, but we do know that dogs bark differently around the world. In China, for example, they say not bow-wow but wang wang. Also, the story behind the British tradition of scrumping. It’s not a middle school...
The Western Folklore Journal of 1976 gives us such romantic phrases as “kisses like a cold fish,” “kisses like your brother through a screen,” and “kisses like a wet brick.” This is part of a complete episode.
Is the expression right on! just an outdated relic of hippie talk, or is it making a comeback? The Journal of American Folklore traces it back to at least 1911, but it gained traction among African-Americans and hippies in the ’60s and ’70s, and now...