Default as a noun and default as a verb are the same word, with a familiar English stress shift: nouns often take first-syllable stress, while verbs often take second-syllable stress, as with the different pronunciations of record. A New York City...
If you mistype something, that’s a typo. But what do you call it when your voice-to-text program mistypes as you’re dictating? Is that a mico, as in microphone? Plus, the word sycophant has a long and surprising history that goes all the way back to...
After hearing our conversation about how dictionaries decide on a preferred pronunciation, and specifically about how to pronounce aioli, Vern from San Diego, California, wrote to say that a friend once made fun of him for pronouncing grimace with a...
Carrie Ann and her cousin Danielle from Minneapolis, Minnesota, wonder about the pronunciation of the word rhetoric. Is the stress on the first syllable or the second? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Is Rhetoric Pronunciation...
Steven from San Antonio, Texas, seeks a word that means “the opposite of trauma.” Perhaps eustress, literally “good stress”? Or harmonization? Placid? Is there a better term for this? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “What Word...
A young listener once asked if there was a single word for “a combination of being nervous but also excited” about something. Listeners offered several of their own coinages, including nervouscited. Another helpful term along these lines might be...
