Lydia in Portland, Maine, was texting someone about having seen an opossum, but wasn’t quite sure how to write that out with the article. Is it a or an opposum? Like most Americans, she drops the initial unstressed syllable, making it sound like...
If you take up texting and social media late in life, there’s a lot to learn! A twenty-something wants advice getting her dad up to speed on memes, Instagram, and animated images. Plus, when you’re on a long road trip, what do you call...
If there’s a logophile on your gift list, you have lots of choices, including a new trivia game for language-lovers and a murder mystery for the word-obsessed. Plus, if someone calls you a schmoozer, should you be flattered or insulted? And if...
C’mere—the quick, reduced version of Come here—is an example of what linguists call an allegro form, a sped-up, casual pronunciation or spelling created through phonetic reduction. The lento form, in contrast, is the longer version. In musical...
Whippoorwills, bob whites, and chickadees. How do we decide the names of birds and what to call their calls? Plus, the last syllables of Arkansas and Kansas are pronounced differently, but they come from the same etymological root. And: What’s the...
The last syllables of Arkansas and Kansas don’t rhyme, but both come from the language of the same Sioux tribe. The name of Kansas was adopted by English-speaking people who came to that area, while the name of Arkansas came from those who were...