Some college students are using the word loyalty as a synonym for monogamy. Are the meanings of these words now shifting? Plus, a biologist discovers a new species of bat, then names it after a poet he admires. Also, warm memories of how a childhood...
In the 1920s, a crossword-puzzle craze swept across the United States. The pastime became wildly popular, and even inspired a Broadway musical, Puzzles of 1925. The fad spread through Canada and England, and the Wimbledon Public Library even removed...
Someone who spends a lot of time reading books is known in English as a bookworm. The Hungarian and Estonian terms for such a person translates as “book moth,” and in Indonesian as “book flea” or “book louse.” In...
What’s the difference between reading a printed book and listening to the audiobook version? Irish novelist Colm Tóibín has compared it to “the difference between running a marathon and watching a marathon on TV.” Yet audiobooks offer...
In the 17th century, high jinks were boisterous drinking games. High jinks may be related to the Scottish word jink, meaning “to turn quickly or move nimbly to one side” or “to make a jerky movement, and by extension “to...
A book of photographs and essays by famous writers celebrates libraries — and the librarians who changed their lives. Plus cutting doughnuts, spinning cookies, and pulling brodies: There are lots of ways to talk about spinning a car in circles on...