Do you pour over a document or pore over a document? Although it’s tempting to assume that the phrase alludes to pouring one’s attention all over something (as if your vision was a substance), the correct word is pore, a term that since...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has crafted a challenge about polysyllabic words that are commonly represented by their first three letters, inspired by the popular online game “Among Us,” in which someone suspicious is simply sus. For example...
How does social context shape our perception of language? When hiking the Appalachian Trail, a young woman from Wyoming found that fellow hikers assumed she was from another country, not only because of how she spoke, but also how she looked...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski is puzzling over one-word compound synonyms. For example, in the sentence While pretty, the bouquet was dominated by a rather large starblossom, the word starblossom might clue what tall plant that many associate with Vincent...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s latest brain teaser is about archaic words. For example, what does the following sentence mean? “Three times in the last decade the Duchess of Cambridge has experienced accouchement.” This is part of a...
Paul in Dryden, New York, says when he lived in Tennessee, he knew that when someone began a sentence with Bless his heart, that phrase would usually be followed by the word but, plus a criticism of that person. Now that he’s living in New...