When an international team of scientists traveled to a research station in Antarctica for six months, the language they all shared was English. After six months together, their accents changed ever so slightly — a miniature version of how language...
Stravenue is a portmanteau of street and avenue, and is used in Tucson, Arizona, to refer to a diagonal road between east-west streets and north-south avenues. Similarly, a stroad is a combination of street and road. This is part of a complete...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has been puzzling over metaphors that involve an action performed on a noun. For example, say he’s writing an essay and suddenly gets some new ideas that inspire him. It’s not literally that he was traveling in a...
Sometimes people naming streets seem to have a little too much fun: In Casco, Maine, there’s a road called Uptha, as in Uptha Road. In Hemet, California, there’s a Haviture Way, and along Porters Lake, Nova Scotia, three connecting...
What’s the most common street name in the United States? Hint: It’s not Main Street or Third Street. It’s also not First Street. You’ll find the answer, along with lots of other fascinating information, in The Address Book:...
Paul in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, has noticed that some people pronounce street as shtreet and straight as shtraight. Why do some people use that SH sound? This is part of a complete episode.