In this week’s episode: Just how far back could you go and still understand the English people were speaking? We crank up our trusty time machine to find out. Hint: You’d probably have a tough time getting around in the eighth century...
OMG, text messaging! It’s destroying the English language, corrupting young minds, turning us into illiterates. It’s probably shrinking the ozone layer, too. Or is it? In his new book, Txting: The Gr8 Db8, David Crystal offers a...
V2G n.— «While a handful of such vehicle-to-grid (V2G) research projects have emerged from California to Texas to Colorado, Dr. Kempton’s project has driven the farthest. […] His and other in-depth studies describe a future...
multimorbidity n.— «People with multiple health problems—a condition known as multimorbidity—are largely overlooked both in medical research and in the nation’s clinics and hospitals. The default position is to treat complicated patients...
Martha explains how experiments with dead frogs and live wires led to the invention of the battery, and inspired a couple of familiar English words.
Hey! It's another newsletter from "A Way with Words," which this week was called "entertainingly erudite" by William Safire in the New York Times. Suh-weet! Our latest erudition came in the form of talk about "apple...