A San Antonio, Texas, middle-schooler has observed that when she and her friends are texting, they use different spellings to indicate agreement. Her friend types OK, but the caller prefers okay. Either is correct. For an engaging, thorough history...
Younger voices take the lead! Curious kid investigators start us off exploring the medieval origins of XOXO, the surprising “all correct” joke that gave us OK, and the linguistic evolution of words like terrific and vintage. From defining physical...
The World Tae Kwan Do Federation has dropped the word Federation from its name, and will no longer be known as the WTF. As the organization’s president explained: “In the digital age, the acronym of our federation has developed negative connotations...
A college student in Bowling Green, Kentucky, wonders about the origin of the word emoji. Although you might guess that the name for these little pictures inserted into text messages contains the English word emotion, that’s just a coincidence...
First-century graffiti. People in ancient times could be just as bawdy and colorful as we are today. To prove it, we found some graffiti written on the walls in the city of Pompeii, and found plenty of sex, arrogance and good old fashioned bathroom...
A Tallahassee, Florida, mother who texted her daughter in a hurry accidentally asked about the “baby woes,” meaning “baby wipes,” and came to the conclusion that we need a new phrase: “read between the autocorrect.” This is part of a complete...
