How do you pronounce pecan? Is it pee-KAHN or PEE-kan? And why are there different pronunciations of the name of this nut? The word pecan was borrowed into English more than once, and from numerous Native American languages that had variations on...
If you reeeeeeeeeally want to emphasize something in writing, you can engage in what linguists call expressive lengthening, or making a word longer by repeating letters. It’s an example of paralinguistic restitution — rendering in text cues such as...
The plural of moose is moose. The word’s roots are in the name of the animal in the Algonquian language Abenaki. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Etymology of Moose” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Yeah, this is Travis from San...