Mahalia from San Diego, California, has a friendly disagreement with her husband over the phrase it takes all kinds. She understands the expression to mean that the world requires many different kinds of people to function. He thinks it means that the world accepts all kinds of people. In other words, does the world need a diversity of people, or is it simply that the world accepts a diversity of people? Each of these senses is valid, and each reflects a subtle philosophical difference, but the suggestion that the world needs all kinds of people is the one with the weight of history behind it. This is part of a complete episode.
According to Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English (Bookshop|Amazon) by Ben Yagoda, the word smarmy, meaning “unctuous” or “ingratiating,” may come from a 19th-century magazine contest, in which readers sent in...
Mary Beth in Greenville, South Carolina, wonders: Why do we say four-oh-nine for the number 409 instead of four-zero-nine or four-aught-nine? What are the rules for saying either zero or oh or aught or ought to indicate that arithmetical symbol...
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