We gaze again into the ocean of difference between American English and British English.
Sometimes you read something that makes you throw the book against the wall, never to pick it up again.
Kathy and Ross throw Fletcher a devil of a grammar quiz as we all get set for back-to-school season.
We answer some of your most burning questions as we take a dip into the ol’ mailbag.
For no reason whatsoever, we look at some words that come from Homer’s famous tale and Ancient Greek more generally.
We take a road trip to the U.S. South to look at some place names that have some pretty surprising pronunciations. Bless our hearts (in a good way)!
We take another shot at figuring out what’s good and bad about the technical uses of common words.
We look at the confusing, but surprisingly intuitive, world of adjective and adverb order and how we can know what we’re doing without knowing what we’re doing.
This week, we look at the (sometimes huge) differences between the technical, specialized definitions of words, and what they mean to everybody else.
School’s out, so we’re celebrating all the new graduates by looking at the backgrounds of some graduation-related words.
We return to one of our favorite (and sometimes most confusing) topics: rules of English that we know instinctively, but that we have no idea we know.
Meh, Duh, D’oh, and Other Communicative Grunts
Today we make a lot of noise by exploring nonverbal vocalizations: all those sounds that aren’t words, exactly, but that still carry a lot of meaning
To split infinitives or to not split them? (Ir)regardless, we’ll dive into some everyday language arguments that get people all worked up.
Oh, so you think those two words mean exactly the same thing? Not. Even. Close.
Kathy and Ross did their darndest to stump Fletcher in last week’s spelling quiz, to moderate success. How will things go this week? The thrilling conclusion…
Kathy and Ross pull out all the stops to try to trick Fletcher with a new spelling quiz. Fletcher does his best to upset them.
Kathy, Ross, and Fletcher try to tackle the Welsh language, with… questionable results. Look, we’re all doing our best here.
Think you don’t know what phonotactics are? Even our youngest English speakers do! You might just not realize it…
This week, Kathy and Ross challenge Fletcher to an epic eponym quiz, and somehow they detour again into an analysis of pavement. How? You’ll have to listen to find out!
Euphemisms We’ll be happy to tell you what this episode is about just as soon as we get back from using the bathroom—I mean, the restroom—I mean, the washroom—I mean, the facilities—I mean …
7 phrases manipulators use that sound ‘nice’ at first—but are actually ‘red flags,’ say experts (CNBC)
Today we address a couple of listener questions, including one about the Third Conditional (???), before moving on to a quiz about Middle English vs. Latin spellings.
Register and Power Today we have a wide-ranging discussion about the words we use, when we use them, and the enormous power they can have. Sometimes words get a whole lot less specific over time, and sometimes people get really mad about that!
We look at how a tiny little prefix or suffix can completely change the meaning of a word. Or how it could do nothing at all!
The most confident people do 10 ‘subtle’ things to influence others, say communication experts (CNBC)