Which is correct: close the lights or turn off the lights? They’re both fine. Rod from Tucson, Arizona, noticed that his Chinese-American wife and her siblings say close the light, which is a calque, or direct translation, from Cantonese. In fact...
In English, you can express skepticism with the classic saying when pigs fly. In Tagalog, a similar sentiment is expressed with a phrase that translates “when the crow turns white, when the heron turns black,” and there’s a Hungarian phrase that...
Over the centuries, the meaning of happiness has traveled a long way. Today we speak of the pursuit of happiness, but it used to be that the word happiness suggested something that occurs only by chance–something that simply… happens. Plus, the joys...
The slang term boondocking refers to camping off-grid in an RV without a hookup to water, electrical power, or a sewer. The -docking element in the word also gave rise to Crackerdocking, which is “boondocking in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel”...
If you speak a second or third language, you may remember the first time you dreamed in that new tongue. But does this milestone mean you’re actually fluent? And a couple’s dispute over the word regret: Say you wish you’d been able...
One of the most powerful words you’ll ever hear — and one of the most poignant — isn’t in dictionaries yet. But it probably will be one day. The word is endling, and it means “the last surviving member of a species.” The...