The word hipster might seem recent, but it actually originated in the 1930s when it referred to jazz aficionados who were in the know about the best nightclubs and cool music. Speaking of music, a professional musician reports that it’s...
Elijah from Akron, Ohio, was surprised when his girlfriend Jenny observed that he was zhuzhing his hair. Elijah was skeptical that zhuzh, meaning “to make more attractive,” was actually a word, until he heard others use it. The word was...
A discussion on the English Language & Usage Stack Exchange about things that can still be useful even if they longer function properly, such as escalators and moving sidewalks, included several intriguing expressions involving partial failure...
Pizey is an old dialectal term from the United Kingdom that means “peevish” or “irritable.” Pizey and pize, as in A pize upon you! may be related to the word poison. This is part of a complete episode.
You may have heard the advice that to build your vocabulary you should read, read, and then read some more – and make sure to include a wide variety of publications. But what if you just don’t have that kind of time? Martha and Grant...
How do languages change and grow? Does every language acquire new words in the same way? Martha and Grant focus on how that process happens in English and Spanish. Plus, the stories behind the Spanish word gringo and the old instruction to...