Understanding the varieties of conversational styles can mean the difference between feeling you’re understood and being insulted. “High-involvement” speakers interrupt or talk along with someone else to signal their enthusiasm...
Dan from Elmira, New York, wonders if there’s such a thing as “structural” onomatopoeia, where the visual appearance or architecture of a written word suggests the meaning of the word. For example, he says, the word level is a...
The new documentary The Palindromists is a delightful romp through the world of competitive palindrome construction. The movie chronicles the events leading up to the 2017 World Palindrome Championship held at the American Crossword Puzzle...
Lori Wike is the principal bassoonist in the Utah Symphony. She also crafts clever palindromes, as is clear from the documentary The Palindromists, which features one of her favorite creations: Had a tonic, cuppa cappuccino, Ta-Dah! This is part of...
We have books for language-lovers and recommendations for history buffs. • How did the word boondoggle come to denote a wasteful project? The answer involves the Boy Scouts, a baby, a craft project, and a city council meeting. • Instead of reversing...
A palindrome is a word or phrase with letters that read the same backwards and forwards, such as taco cat, nurses run, and a nut for a jar of tuna. Word-unit palindromes are similar, although you read them word by word. One example: “You can...