Stefan Fatsis has made a career out of participatory journalism. For his book Word Freak (Bookshop|Amazon) about the world of competitive Scrabble, he became an expert player. For A Few Seconds of Panic: A Sportswriter Plays in the NFL...
The People’s Tongue: Americans and the English Language (Bookshop|Amazon) reflects 450 years of English as it has been spoken and written in what is now the United States. Edited by Ilan Stavans, this anthology of original texts—essays, articles...
Luke in Waco, Texas wonders which is correct: Do you stub your toe or stump your toe? And why would anyone say to a cook who makes a tasty bowl of chili You really stumped your toe on this? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Stub...
Pickthank is an archaic, literary word for a person who curries favor by informing against someone else. The term goes back at least to 1460. Noah Webster defined a pick-thank as “a whispering parasite” or “an officious fellow.” It overlaps with...
Inspired by Noah Webster’s spelling reform, Quiz Guy John Chaneski came up with a puzzle that involves removing the letter U from one word to form another. For example, what two words are clued by the following statement? “I used to live in a...
Alex in Montreal wonders why his Canadian Armed Forces unit uses the British-style pronunciation lef-TEN-ant for lieutenant, while Americans usually say loo-TEN-ant. Both pronunciations trace to French before the word entered English, with the f...