If you speak both German and Spanish, you may find yourself reaching for a German word instead of a Spanish one, and vice versa. This puzzling experience is so common among polyglots that linguists have a name for it. • The best writers create...
A listener reports that her Brooklyn-born mother used to exclaim, upon seeing something remarkable, “Don’t that jar your preserves?” This is part of a complete episode.
The months of September, October, November, and December take their names from Latin words meaning “seven,” “eight,” “nine,” and “ten.” So why don’t their names correspond to where they fall in...
You’re trying to unscrew the stubborn lid on a jar of pickles and ask someone to hand you that flat, round, rubber thing that helps you get it open. What do you call it? In a discussion on our Facebook group, listeners share several names...
TMPMITW n.— «As an added bonus, Jar Jar McClellan has a way of distilling the complex philosophies and intellectual reasonings of TMPMITW (The Most Powerful Man in the World) into digestible bites while still conveying the nuance and...