If you’re tired of saying It’s hot outside, you always say It’s glorgy, pronounced with hard g sounds. This Scottish word may derive from an old word meaning “soft mud.” You could also say the weather is pothery, an...
Whether it’s a Rubik’s cube or a round of Wordle, why do so many of us find puzzles irresistible? A new book celebrates the allure and psychological benefits of brain teasers. Plus, powerful language for talking about the chronic...
How do you pronounce the word aunt? In most of the United States, it’s pronounced to sound just like the word ant. This is part of a complete episode.
How do you pronounce Missouri? Is it /miz-URR-ee/ or /miz-URR-uh/? There are actually four distinct pronunciations of this word. Linguist Donald Lance of the University of Missouri-Columbia studied the history of this name extensively and found that...
Marianne from Valdosta, Georgia, is stumped about how to pronounce the term bona fides. It means “authentic credentials,” as in literary bona fides, and comes from Latin bona fides, literally “good faith.” In the United...
A civil engineer in Boston, Massachusetts, is puzzled by part of an assignment to design a driveway that traverses a stream to access a proposed development. The wetlands scientist he’s working with informed him that he’d need to design...