Hundreds of years ago, the word girl didn’t necessarily mean a female child — in the 14th and 15th centuries, it could refer to a child of either sex. Only later did its meaning become more specific. • Some people think that referring to a...
Why, when writing out an abbreviated name like NATO for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, don’t we use periods between the letters to form the acronym or initialism? This is part of a complete episode.