Joanne of Port St. Lucie, Florida, has a Scrabble nemesis: zax, a word that once cost her a challenge and later disappeared from the dictionary her friends checked. It is a valid Scrabble word for a roofing tool and a variant of sax, from an Old...
If you were stranded on a desert island, wouldn’t you get to thinking how odd it is that we don’t pronounce the s in island? It was added during the Renaissance in an attempt to make the word look more like its Latin source, insula. This...
The stitch in your side that results from laughing goes back to the thousand-year-old use of the verb stitch to refer to a sewing needle poking through something. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Stitch in your Side”...
Jane in Monticello, Florida, asks about nairn in sentences such as I don’t want nairn, meaning “I don’t want any.” The word is usually spelled nairn and is a contraction of never a one, and related to nary. It has been used for hundreds of years...
Diminutive suffixes, Donnie for Don, change the meaning of a name to something smaller, cuter, or sweeter. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Diminutive Suffixes” Hi there, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Scott...
Grant dug up an old book of English proverbs, with gems like “Novelty always appears handsome,” and “New dishes beget new appetites.” Perhaps you can consider those before lining up for that new iPhone. This is part of a...