High school students in Alabama share some favorite slang terms. If someone tells you to touch grass, they’re telling you to get a reality check — but the last thing you’d actually want to touch is dog water! Also, the history of the word hangover, and the many names, in several languages, for the effects […]
Language is always evolving, and that’s also true for American Sign Language. A century ago, the sign for “telephone” was one fist below your mouth and the other at your ear, as if you’re holding an old-fashioned candlestick phone. Now you can sign “phone” with a one-handed gesture. Plus, colorful restaurant slang from the hit […]
What’s your job? Can you say it correctly in English? Avoid 20 of the most common English pronunciation mistakes related to jobs, occupations, and professions. Learn the right way to say librarian, professor, architect, photographer, actor, designer, cashier, psychiatrist, and much more. One short lesson to help you speak correctly and sound more professional.
Whether it’s a Rubik’s cube or a round of Wordle, why do so many of us find puzzles irresistible? A new book celebrates the allure and psychological benefits of brain teasers. Plus, powerful language for talking about the chronic illnesses and invisible disabilities that sap a person’s energy and focus. And what would you wear […]
The “ah” and “uh” vowel sounds in English sound similar, but mixing them up can completely change your meaning. I will show you the difference between the “ah” sound and the “uh” sound in English, and how important this small vowel difference can be. We will look at common minimal pairs like swam/swum, sang/sung, ran/run, […]
English spelling seems so irregular because it preserves history instead of matching sound. Early on, this Germanic tongue absorbed Norse and French influences from invaders, and in the late 1400s, printing helped standardize early spellings just before pronunciation shifted dramatically in the Great Vowel Shift. Vowels changed; spellings tended not to. The result is a […]
When a teenager went a week without talking as part of a school project, he noticed a surprising side effect: Instead of rehearsing a response to what other people were saying to him, he was focused on listening — and feeling smarter as a result. Plus, a flight attendant is irritated by a certain term […]
Lydia in Portland, Maine, was texting someone about having seen an opossum, but wasn’t quite sure how to write that out with the article. Is it a or an opposum? Like most Americans, she drops the initial unstressed syllable, making it sound like “possum,” a mismatch that can make the article choice look wrong on […]