Words for “mother” begin with the letter M in many languages, but not all of them. The reason has to do with the physiology of infant vocalization. Among the first sounds babies make are bilabial sounds with an open vowel, the lips...
A baby’s first word is often a cherished milestone, but some cultures pay more attention to other firsts, like a baby’s first laugh. A fascinating new book by a linguist examines language at the beginning and the end of life. Plus, the...
The word larruping and its many variant spellings is often used to describe delicious food. The verb larrup means to “beat” or “strike,” and larruping (often spelled with the G dropped: larrupin’) is used as an intensifier...
Why do we write the sound of a dog barking as bow wow? Isn’t that noise more like woof, woof or arf, arf or ruff ruff? Surprisingly, the oldest of these is bow wow, or as William Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest (Bookshop|Amazon), bowgh wawgh...
Deb in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, says that when her mother was disappointed or annoyed she’d say Wouldn’t that just cork you? The idea here is that in the same way that a cork that stops up a bottle, an unexpected or irritating event...
So many books and so little time—it’s a challenge to choose what to read next! It helps to remember that so-called “reading mortality” is a fact of life—you’ll never get to them all, but you can curate your own to-read list...