National Book Award winner Barry Lopez had wise advice for young writers. First, read widely and follow your curiosity. Second, travel or learn a foreign language. And third, find out what you truly believe, because if you’re not writing from...
Astronauts returning from space say they experience what’s called the overview effect, a new understanding of the fragility of our planet and our need to reflect on what humans all share as a species. A book about the end of the universe...
You say that it’s raining or it’s cold, but what exactly is it? Sometimes called the weather it or the dummy it, this it in this case is a placeholder that makes sentence work grammatically. This is part of a complete episode.
Randy from Live Oak, Florida, remembers a man in Central Florida who often added a few words to a simple sentence of explanation, usually thing ‘ere or thing like that and all. That might just reflect his own habitual way of speaking...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has crafted a challenge about polysyllabic words that are commonly represented by their first three letters, inspired by the popular online game “Among Us,” in which someone suspicious is simply sus. For example...
How does social context shape our perception of language? When hiking the Appalachian Trail, a young woman from Wyoming found that fellow hikers assumed she was from another country, not only because of how she spoke, but also how she looked...