There was a time when William Shakespeare was just another little seven-year-old in school. Classes in his day were demanding — and all in Latin. A new book argues that this rigorous curriculum actually nurtured the creativity that later flourished...
In a passage from How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education, Scott Newstok, a professor at Rhodes College, offers an apt description of class letting out and students wandering about while focused on their phones. This is...
In How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education, Scott Newstok, a professor at Rhodes College, points out that William Shakespeare never had what we might think of as an “English class.” Instead, he was taught...
Did you ever take lessons to play the stomach Steinway? You know, the accordion? That’s another bit of musicians’ slang sent in by a listener, along with the term bunhead, which means “a ballet dancer.” This is part of a...
Martha and Grant offer gift recommendations for language lovers: Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages, by Guy Deutscher. OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word, by Allan Metcalf. Lost in...
sand spur n.— «In personality profiles newspapers use what some refer to as “sand spurs,” referring to little foibles of the person that show him or her as real, rather than just the subject of PR flackery. In Troutman’s case...