You dream of writing the great American novel, but to make ends meet, you spend your days writing boring corporate reports. There’s a difference between writing for love and writing for a living — or is there? Does a heyday have anything to do...
How did the word gay go from meaning lighthearted to homosexual? Also, why are elementary schools sometimes called grammar schools? Plus, imeldific, gone pecan, random Scrabble words, and the difference between borrow and lend. And the etiquette of...
How do children acquire language? Do they start with nouns, like “Mama” and “cat,” then graduate to verbs and other parts of speech? Grant explains that language acquisition starts even earlier, with children simply emulating...
Here’s another newsletter from A Way with Words! Is text messaging a sign of the destruction of English? No! On this past weekend’s show, we talked about it, as well as the names of your toes, “recombobulation,” word blends...
whale tail n.— «Another distraction occurs when pants ride low in the back and expose thong underwear, a phenomenon students have dubbed “whales’ tails.” “If you a 16-year-old boy in an English class, and you’ve got...
abcoolen v.— «But how to explain the Denglish verbs? Smalltalken, brunchen, mailen, floppen, managen, abcoolen and many others? These are not used to save syllables or avoid complexity. They are simply in vogue, whether for better or...