When he lived in Nova Scotia, Jeffrey from Montreal, Canada, noted that the word some was often used as an intensifier, as in That’s some good or She’s some pretty or She’s right some pretty. Also common in the dialects of...
The art of the invitation can be tricky. An inviter’s idea of invitation may be taken by an invitee as merely mentioning an event while they’re nearby. One such a misunderstanding went on for months! Plus, George Saunders, winner of the...
Reading A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life (Bookshop|Amazon) feels like auditing a class with creative writing professor writer George Saunders, author of the acclaimed Lincoln in...
How colors got their names, and a strange way to write. The terms blue and orange arrived in English via French, so why didn’t we also adapt the French for black and white? • Not every example of writing goes in one direction across the page...
According to Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, it’s important to master the basics of writing, but there comes a time when you have to strike out on your own and teach yourself. Also: Spanish idioms involving food, a conversation about the...
How do you transform ancient Chinese script for use in the modern age? English uses a keyboard with just 26 letters, but the first Chinese typewriter looked like a small table under a huge disk with more than 4,000 characters. A new book chronicles...
