Ever wonder what medieval England looked and sounded like? In Old English, the word hord meant “treasure” and your wordhord was the treasure of words locked up inside you. A delightful new book uses the language of that period to create...
Sure, there’s winter, spring, summer, and fall. But the seasons in between have even more poetic names. In Alaska, greenup describes a sudden, dramatic burst of green after a long, dark winter. And there are many, many terms for a cold snap...
The word conclave comes from Latin con- meaning “together” and clavis meaning “key.” A gathering known as a conclave occurs in “a room that can be locked.” From the same root comes enclave, from the idea of “enclosing,” as well as clavier, a...
This week’s challenge from Quiz Guy John Chaneski involves non-rhyming pairs of words that both end in the letter Y. Try this clue: John and his wife Jennifer recently spent a whole day there last week participating in their civic obligation. What’s...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski shares one of this take-off puzzles, where the object is to remove a letter from the beginning from one word to form another word. In this case, the letter is always S. For example, what two words are clued by “The...
Old. Elderly. Senior. Why are we so uncomfortable when we talk about reaching a certain point in life? An 82-year-old seeks a more positive term to describe how she feels about her age. And: a linguist helps solve a famous kidnapping case, using the...