The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary recently added several Irish English terms. One of them is segotia, which means “friend.” There’s an entry for this word, also spelled segocia, in Grant’s own book, The Official...
Lily in Iowa City, Iowa, says she and her roommate differ about how to pronounce the word hammock. Is it HAM-mock or HAM-mick? This is part of a complete episode.
Chris in Northampton, Massachusetts, and his mother are debating whether you can refer to your dog as somebody? Is it reasonable to say your pet is a someone rather than a something? Strictly speaking, dictionaries define the word someoneas...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s puzzle is about animal anatomy, specifically nouns and adjectives formed by combining the name of an animal with another word. For example, what zoologically-related noun is associated with the idea of “a high...
Was English spelling standardized before the advent of the printing press? No, but there were some significant periods in history where spelling became a little more fixed. Among them are the replacing of the Runic alphabet with the Roman alphabet...
The Irish English word bockety describes someone who has difficulty walking, or something that’s fallen into a state of disrepair, as in my bockety old chair. This is part of a complete episode.