A Winter Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon) by Paul Anthony Jones includes some words to lift your spirits. The verb whicken involves the lengthening of days in springtime, a variant of quicken, meaning “come to life.” Another word, breard, is...
If you don’t have anything nice to say, say it like Shakespeare: Thou unhandsome smush-mouthed mush-rump! Thou obscene rug-headed hornbeast! The Shakespeare Insult Generator helps you craft creative zingers by mixing and matching the...
Don’t capitalize names of seasons unless they’re part of a proper noun, such as Summer Olympics or Spring Formal. Unlike the names of months and days of the week, seasons aren’t eponymous, meaning they don’t derive from...
A 1904 dialect collection tipped us off to this variation on the idea of going to the land of milk and honey: “Going to find the honey spring and the flitter tree,” flitter being a variant of fritter, as in something fried and delicious...
Greetings! In this week's archive edition (more about that in a moment) we discuss "bring" vs. "take," Facebook groups for grammar lovers, and singing the lyrics of "Amazing Grace" over the melody of...
A caller wonders if the Spanish and Arabic articles el and al spring from the same linguistic root. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Spanish and Arabic Article Roots” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, how are you...