The crossword puzzle community lost an exceptional man when Merl Reagle died recently. Reagle was a gifted puzzle writer and a lovely person who gave his crosswords a sense of life outside the arcane world of word puzzles. This is part of a complete...
Did your teacher ever make you write a sentence over and over as punishment? That task is called a pensum. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Pensum” At the beginning of every opening credit scene to The Simpsons, Bart Simpson is at...
What do you call it when you’re about to jump into a conversation but someone beats you to it? Mary, a caller and self-described introvert from Indianapolis, calls it getting seagulled, inspired by an episode of The Simpsons in which nerdy Lisa...
You’ve seen people indicate emphasis by putting a period after each of several words, and capitalizing the first letter of each word. A Michigan listener wonders how this stylistic trick arose. Her question was prompted by this description of French...
Grant dishes up the latest language headlines from around the world, including names so weird they sparked legal action. Two New Zealand parents really did name their daughter “Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii.” Also, what’s wrong with using a word...
