The new book Gesture: A Slim Guide (Bookshop|Amazon) by linguist Lauren Gawne includes some fascinating studies about the movements that accompany spoken or signed language. In one, participants were asked to learn rules of a game, then explain...
Ruth in Cincinnati, Ohio, is curious about the lyrics to the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic “Maria” from the movie The Sound of Music. Maria, a nun who’s not quite a good fit for the abbey, is described as “a...
The catchphrase Good stuff, Maynard! Comes from a series of TV commercials for Malt-O-Meal hot cereal that aired during the early 1980s and featured a little boy and his imaginary friend Maynard. Some folks still use this phrase today when enthusing...
A high-schooler in Indianapolis, Indiana, wonders why the word number is abbreviated as no. when there’s no letter O in the word. The answer lies in the Latin word numero, which is the ablative form of the Latin word for number, numerus. This...
Charlotte in Alexandria, Virginia, has noticed a bit of National Park Service shorthand in Washington, D.C.: some attractions shrink to the first two letters of each word. Ford’s Theater becomes FOTH, Peterson House across the street is PEHO, and...
Good stuff, Maynard!, remembered by Matt in Waukesha, Wisconsin as his grandfather’s praise after supper, was popularized by a long-running series of Malt-O-Meal commercials. In the ads, a father urged his son to eat the hot cereal with that line...