Daniel Mendelsohn is a widely acclaimed author, critic, classicist, and professor at Bard College. A few years ago, when he was teaching an undergraduate seminar on The Odyssey (Bookshop|Amazon) his 81-year-old father, Jay, decided to sit in on the...
Kelly Barnhill is the author of four novels, including The Girl Who Drank the Moon (Bookshop|Amazon), which won the 2017 Newbery Medal for children’s literature. She’s also been helping neighborhood teens with their college essays, encouraging them...
Decisions by dictionary editors, wacky wordplay, and Walt Whitman’s soaring verse. How do lexicographers decide which historical figures deserve a mention or perhaps even an illustration in the dictionary? The answer changes with the times. •...
The words we choose can change attitudes — and change lives. A swing-dance instructor has switched to gender-neutral language when teaching couples. He says that using words like “leader” and “follower” actually works better than using gendered...
On our Facebook group, a listener asks if anyone else’s children have been taught the term fanboy, meaning a coordinating conjunction. These connecting words include f or, a nd, n or, b ut, o r, y et, and s o, and a helpful way to remember them is...
An eighth-grade history teacher from Denton, Texas, is teaching about colonial America, and wonders if there’s a difference between the phrases to found a colony or establish a colony. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Found vs...
