Rowan in Ottawa, Ontario, says her Irish mom used a puzzling word to indicate a sort of restless discontent not caused by anything in particular. It may be neamhchinnte, which means “uncertain” or “indecisive.” This is part...
A seven-letter word riddle asks what becomes longer when its third letter disappears. The trick depends on treating the word both as something with a meaning and as a string of characters, with a pun waiting at the end. This is part of a complete...
Just so you know, there are more exciting ways to spell yes. Yass, yiss, and other variants including more S’s are used both in speech and informal writing to convey added enthusiasm and personality. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Sure, it’s scary to send your writing to a literary agent. But pity the poor agent who must wade through hundreds of terrible query letters a week! One of them shares excerpts from those hilariously bad query letters on a blog called SlushPile...
Creative communication in a noisy world! Writing a clever 140-character tweet isn’t easy. But you know what’s even more impressive? Working all 26 letters of the alphabet into just one sentence! The term for that type of sentence is...
Reed in Clintonville, Wisconsin, has long insisted that groceries should have an s sound in the middle, while his Montana-raised wife uses sh, as if it were grosheries. Both pronunciations are widespread. Many usage authorities prefer the s...