A father and son are having an ongoing discussion about which came first — the color orange or the name of the fruit? The citrus got there first. The original name of this fruit comes from Sanskrit naranga, or “orange tree.” A German...
How does social context shape our perception of language? When hiking the Appalachian Trail, a young woman from Wyoming found that fellow hikers assumed she was from another country, not only because of how she spoke, but also how she looked...
Jill in Shelton, Washington, says that when she lived in Southern California, she understood the word garbage to mean food scraps, with trash referring to everything else collected curbside. Historically, garbage has referred to the wet, disgusting...
There was a time when William Shakespeare was just another little seven-year-old in school. Classes in his day were demanding — and all in Latin. A new book argues that this rigorous curriculum actually nurtured the creativity that later flourished...
A Minnesota listener wonders about a phrase her father always used: the juice was worth the squeeze, meaning the result was worth the effort. It’s simply a reference to squeezing a piece of fruit for drinking. The musician Lizzo suggests a...
She sells seashells by the seashore. Who is the she in this tongue twister? Some claim it’s the young Mary Anning, who went on to become a famous 19th-century British paleontologist. Dubious perhaps, but the story of her rise from seaside...