Quinn from Excelsior, Minnesota, is five years old — well, five and three-quarters, as she points out. She wonders why the letter Q is so often followed by U. In Old English, the alphabet didn’t include the letter Q. The word quick, for...
How do actors bring Shakespeare’s lines to life so that modern audiences immediately understand the text? One way is to emphasize the names of people and places at certain points. That technique is called billboarding. And: Anyone for an...
James from Trabuco Canyon, California, learns that there’s a proper way to spell the letters of the alphabet. The letter J is spelled jay and H is spelled aitch. His own name would be spelled out as jay aye em ee ess. The letter Y is spelled...
Psychological research shows that when it comes to letters of the alphabet, people tend to like their own initials, perhaps because of a sense of ownership. This phenomenon is called the name-letter effect. This is part of a complete episode.
Why don’t we pronounce the letter b in the word subtle? The word derives ultimately from Latin subtilis, meaning “fine, delicate,” and was adopted into Middle English from Old French as sotil. The b was later added back in so that...
Sötnos, with an umlaut over that first o, is a Swedish term of endearment. Literally, it means “sweet nose.” This is part of a complete episode.