There are word nerds, and then there’s the woman who set up a folding chair on sidewalks throughout the country, cheerfully dispensing tips about grammar. She recounts her adventures in a new book. And the story of the brilliant pioneer of computing...
Every subculture has its own secret lingo, whether you’re talking about surfers, cab drivers, or coffee-shop baristas. A new book uncovers the slang of everyone from stunt performers to department-store Santas and more. Plus, why is English so darn...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a puzzle that’s full of misspellings–only on purpose. Given a definition, you have to provide the common incorrect spelling. For example, how would you misspell the word defined by the following? “A confection made from...
A North Carolina listener is curious about his meemaw’s use of a term meaning “food” that he heard as either jasmine or jassum. A dialectal term with various spellings that include jassum, jasum, and jazm can mean “gravy,” “sauce,” or even “juice...
How do you pronounce pecan? Is it pee-KAHN or PEE-kan? And why are there different pronunciations of the name of this nut? The word pecan was borrowed into English more than once, and from numerous Native American languages that had variations on...
English spelling is a hot mess, even for native speakers. But as a new book shows, would-be spelling reformers, including Benjamin Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, eventually just gave up. Also, what do you call your fellow parent in front of the...