She sells seashells by the seashore. Who is the she in this tongue twister? Some claim it’s the young Mary Anning, who went on to become a famous 19th-century British paleontologist. Dubious perhaps, but the story of her rise from seaside salesgirl...
Claudia in Cherryville, North Carolina, grew up hearing her grandmother call those spring-yellow flowers jonquils, not daffodils. In botanical terms, daffodil is the broader common name for flowers in the genus Narcissus, while a jonquil is one...
Many English words have their roots in Greek and Roman myth. Tantalize derives from the story of King Tantalus, condemned to stand forever in a pool that receded whenever he was thirsty, and beneath a bough of fruit that pulled away whenever he...