So you think you can spell? Youngsters in modern spelling bees are expected to memorize a wide range of words, from chemical processes to names of rare animals. Also: In many languages, the word for “mother” begins with the letter M —...
Two words from the 2025 Scripps National Spelling Bee prep materials: avahi, a term for a woolly lemur of Madagascar, and saltigrade, which describes spiders and other creatures that have feet and limbs adapted for leaping. Saltigrade is...
A new book about how animals perceive their environment reveals immense worlds beyond our own. A bee can see ultraviolet light, catfish have taste buds all over their bodies, and manatees use highly sensitive lips to examine nearby objects. Also...
Jennifer, a seventh-grade English teacher in Kingsport, Tennessee, and her students have been studying the development of Romance languages, which got them wondering: When did the words romance and romantic come to be associated with stories about...
The Latin word latibulum means a “refuge or hiding place of animals.” It derives from the same root that gives us the English word latent, meaning “hidden.” A 17th-century dictionary defines the now-rare English word...
The word radish derives from Latin radix, meaning “root.” The Latin word is at the root of the English words radical and eradicate. This is part of a complete episode.