It’s that time again, when people start thinking about a new or resurgent word or phrase that best captures the spirit of the past year. And what a year! We heard the words bailout and lipstick more times than we’d ever dreamed, and saw also the rise of invented words like staycation and recessionista. What are your nominations for 2008’s Word of the Year? This is part of a complete episode.
The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary recently added several Irish English terms. One of them is segotia, which means “friend...
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...
Chris in Northampton, Massachusetts, and his mother are debating whether you can refer to your dog as somebody? Is it reasonable to say...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s puzzle is about animal anatomy, specifically nouns and adjectives formed by combining the name of an animal...
Was English spelling standardized before the advent of the printing press? No, but there were some significant periods in history where...
The Irish English word bockety describes someone who has difficulty walking, or something that’s fallen into a state of disrepair, as...
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