Jim in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, says that during childhood games of touch football, he and his friends would count out the required three seconds before rushing as Mississippi one, Mississippi two, Mississippi three. Other ways of counting...
You might assume that the Welsh word plant means the same thing it does in English, but this word is a linguistic false friend. The Welsh word plentyn means “child,” and the word plant means “children.” Some false friends are...
The term “so long,” meaning “goodbye,” does not come from the Arabic word salaam. Its origin is German. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “So Long!” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, it’s...
The difference between Mandarin and Cantonese points to a general difference between languages and dialects: languages tend to have a whole different nationalism or geopolitical power associated with them. For more about Mandarin and Cantonese in...
The finalists at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament wear giant headphones to block out the noise of the crowd and color commentary. As it happens, the white noise being pumped into them is the pre-recorded sound of a United Nations cocktail...
Yes, the k in knot, know, knife, and knight was once pronounced. Alvaro in Dallas wonders about that silent first letter. The change is an example of apheresis, the loss of an initial sound. Old English had a pronounced initial consonant in words...