A Chicago man says he was caught up short when he caught himself writing the words “a whole nother.” Is nother really a word? The book Grant recommends on the topic is Everything You Know about English is Wrong, by Bill Brohaugh. This is...
In this week’s episode: Just how far back could you go and still understand the English people were speaking? We crank up our trusty time machine to find out. Hint: You’d probably have a tough time getting around in the eighth century...
A caller wonders why some versions of the Lord’s Prayer include the phrase “forgive us our trespasses,” while others substitute the word “debt.”
“Full fathom five thy father lies…” When the Bard wrote these immortal words, he was talking about the word fathom as a measure of distance. But a Chicago caller can’t quite fathom the meaning of the verb “to fathom...
Jack in Madison, Wisconsin, wondered in the half-awake hours whether fillet and flay share an origin. They don’t. Fillet, also pronounced like French filet, comes through Old French from Latin filum, “thread,” the source of filament. Flay is...
In this week’s episode: Just how far back could you go and still understand the English people were speaking? We crank up our trusty time machine to find out. Hint: You’d probably have a tough time getting around in the eighth century...