Sarah in San Antonio, Texas, says that when she goes to a restaurant and orders iced tea, the server usually asks, “Sweet or unsweet?” That doesn’t sound right to her. How do you unsweeten tea? Doesn’t the un- imply a...
In the 17th century, it was fashionable to add mar- to various words to suggest the idea of someone who ruins something. A marfeast ruins dinner, a marjoy takes away joy, and a marplot ruins an undertaking by meddling in it. This is part of a...
Hypochondria derives from the Greek preposition hypo, meaning “under,” as in the hypodermic that goes under the skin, and hypothermia, the condition of being insufficient heat. The -chondria in hypochondria comes from Greek chondros...
Robin in Jacksonville, Florida, grew up using the word unthaw as in unthaw the frozen hamburger until someone told her that she should instead simply say thaw to mean “allow something frozen to come to room temperature.” Is it wrong to...
At a Seattle, Washington, tech company, Vivian finds that she and her fellow employees are continually vexed by this question: Does bimonthly mean “once every two weeks” or “once every two months”? This is part of a complete...
Gwen, a sixth-grader in Rosalia, Washington, wonders why indifferent doesn’t mean simply “not different” or “uniquely different.” Her father’s gloss, “not caring,” is the standard sense: apathetic, unconcerned, or having no preference either way...