Sidney in Boston, Massachusetts, is curious about the diaeresis, that pair of dots that occasionally appear over a vowel in words such as naïve and coöperate. In ancient Greek diairesis, meaning “division,” applied to those dots in...
Judy in Fort Worth, Texas, is writing some historical fiction. What are some tips for representing the dialect and vernacular of a particular time and place with accuracy? One great resource is the Dictionary of American Regional English. Another...
English writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton is best remembered for the first line of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford (Bookshop|Amazon). The novel opens with “It was a dark and stormy night …” followed by many twists and turns in a long...
Miles from Madison, Wisconsin, is musing about whether there’s a single word or phrase for the time of year when it snows while leaves are still on the trees. One jocular term for snow falling on leaves during that liminal period is snowliage...
Anna from Columbia, Mississippi, wonders about a phrase she heard as a youngster from her dad: leyores to catch meddlers or leyores to catch meddlers. Sometimes when she’d ask what he was doing, he’d respond with that cryptic saying...
What kind of book is most often requested by people who are incarcerated? The book that prison inmates ask for the vast majority of the time is a dictionary. These books, as well as thesauruses, prove useful for mastering reading skills, writing...