Steve in Neenah, Wisconsin, says he’d not heard the term suss out in a long time, but then suddenly he was hearing again it in several different places. What he’s experiencing is the frequency illusion, also known as the Baader-Meinhof...
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...
Destiny from Huntington Beach, California, speaks German proficiently, plus some Spanish. She’s now learning Russian, but finds herself frustrated as she reaches instead for Spanish words for the same thing. This phenomenon is so common among...
A clever pun can make the difference between a so-so phrase and a memorable one. The phrase “the last straw” refers to an old fable about too many items in a load, but it takes on a whole new meaning in a public-awareness campaign about...
Eleven-year-old Ben calls from Rapids City to ask about the term sundog, the meteorological phenomenon in which a bright spot appears to the left or right of the sun. No one knows the origin of this term. Synonyms include mock sun, weather gall, and...
The dilemma continues over how to spell dilemma! Grant and Martha try to suss out the backstory of why some people spell that word with an “n.” A lot of them, it seems, went to Catholic school. Maybe that’s a clue? Plus, the saying...