John in Tucson, Arizona, remembers his grandfather used the possessives hisn, hern, yourn, and ourn, as in Those cattle are hisn or That house is hern. These archaic forms originated hundreds of years ago, formed by analogy with mine and thine...
Christine in Denver, Colorado, is pondering the etiquette of correcting someone’s pronunciation. How do you approach knowing the actual pronunciation of a word, when it’s not the most common one? For example, Christine learned that the...
Mav in Madison, Wisconsin, has heard content creators on platforms like YouTube and Twitch address their viewers collectively with the word chat, as in Chat, is this real? and Do you see this, chat? She’s heard some people describe chat used...
Ken in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, wonders about the use of a couple of interjections. Why don’t people begin sentences with the word Say any more? And is it impolite to start a sentence with Hey? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript...
Sandee from New York City thought that she was the only person who had misunderstood a line from the song “Ladies Who Lunch” from the Stephen Sondheim musical Company, memorably performed on Broadway by Elaine Stritch. Years later...
There’s no definite rule for putting the apostrophe “s” after names like Liz or Alex when talking about Liz’s wedding or Alex’s school, but we know for certain that most people say, and write out, the possessive...