A caller with a 25-year-old parrot wonders: How much language do birds really understand? Plus, Knock-knock. Who’s there? Boo. Well… you can guess the rest. But there was a time when these goofy jokes were a brand-new craze sweeping the nation...
How do you pronounce the second syllable in the word divisive? This question divides lots of English speakers. Either is fine, but the use of a short i is more recent, first recorded in dictionaries in 1961. This is part of a complete episode...
Sangwich, sammitch, and samwidge are natural workarounds for the tricky consonant cluster in sandwich. Eric in San Antonio grew up hearing sangwich from parents, grandparents, and friends, then changed his pronunciation after seeing the word in...
How do you pronounce the name Carnegie? The Scottish industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie pronounced it with an accent on the second syllable, as his namesake, the Carnegie Corporation of New York takes pains to make clear. Good luck...
Alex in Montreal wonders why his Canadian Armed Forces unit uses the British-style pronunciation lef-TEN-ant for lieutenant, while Americans usually say loo-TEN-ant. Both pronunciations trace to French before the word entered English, with the f...
Gifts for book lovers: Martha recommends one for lovers of libraries and another for students of Spanish. Grant suggests some enchanting novels for young readers. When it comes to books, though, you can’t always judge them by their original titles...