Twice a day the River Thames recedes, revealing a muddy shoreline. Hobbyists known as mudlarks stroll the surface searching for objects that have found their way into the river over the centuries, everything from ancient Roman jewelry to modern...
How and why do words from one language find their way into another? Vietnamese, for instance, includes lots of words borrowed or adapted from French. Such linguistic mixing often happens when languages brush up against each other and speakers reach...
Unparalleled misalignments are pairs of phrases in which the words in one phrase are each synonyms of the words in the other, but the phrases themselves mean different things. For example, the phrase blanket statement can be paired with cover story...
What exactly is a planet? Controversy over this question led to Pluto’s redefinition, along with a brand-new English word. And: Some people now use the phrase all the things! to mean and whatnot or you know what I mean. This new sense of all...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski says he and his fellow puzzlers often kibitz over familiar riddles, thinking up alternative answers. For example, the answer to “What month do people sleep the least?” is “February,” because that month has the fewest days. But...
An ambitious effort to install poetry in national parks around the United States features the work of beloved poets in beautiful spots. It’s a reminder that “Nature is not a place to visit. Nature is who we are.” Also, Google...