Quiz Guy John Chaneski has spent days prying vowels out of words. They’re now lying in a pile on the floor, and your job is to put them back where they belong. For example, what vowels need to be added to the incomplete expression FR XMPL? This is...
Rose in Edmonton, Kentucky, notes that many people in her area pronounce the word idea as if it were ideal. That’s a common dialectal feature in the Southern United States, as well as Appalachia and the Mid-Atlantic. In parts of New England, idea...
Prepare for a groaner: If you say all the vowels in the name Celine Dion, you just may be inspired to sing a song yourself. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Sing with Celine” You know, the singer Celine Dion grew up in the French...
If you reeeeeeeeeally want to emphasize something in writing, you can engage in what linguists call expressive lengthening, or making a word longer by repeating letters. It’s an example of paralinguistic restitution, rendering in text cues such as...
Elijah is from Fayetteville, West Virginia, and wonders why he talks differently from the way his peers from the same area of Appalachia talk. What causes someone to develop a particular accent? Two great resources for information about the...
Kolin in Los Angeles, California, says his friend Helen is known for writing witty tweets that go viral, such as one about the difference between men’s and women’s midlife crises. He says she credits her success in part to her use of assonance, or...
