Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a prepositional puzzle in which each answer has a noun on either end of the words on the. For example, if you want to get the average person’s views, you might seek out a male adult standing in the road. In that...
Gopal from Greenville, North Carolina, wonders why we use the phrase my two cents after expressing an opinion to indicate that we’re open to discussion about it. Since the 16th century, the term twopence has been used to mean a “paltry...
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote, in a Supreme Court opinion no less, that “a word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time...
Should we use try and or try to? Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage says it’s grammatically permissible to “try and go to the store,” or to ask someone to “try and speak up.” However, a fan of formality...
Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle! It's another newsletter from "A Way with Words"! "Moded, corroded, your booty exploded"--that's what we talked about this past weekend on the program. "Moded" is a...
blue hair n.— «And the waitresses. I imagine some of them have been here for decades, and probably dispense as much attitude and opinion as they do iced tea and iceberg lettuce salads. In the restaurant business they’re affectionately...