![You won’t bee-lieve how honeybees give directions. You won’t bee-lieve how honeybees give directions.](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_3840,h_2160,x_0,y_0/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/mentalfloss/01j33hk2q67g4cvbfwj8.jpg)
![Brett Reynolds Brett Reynolds](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_180,ar_1:1,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape/cover/sport/Brett_Reynolds-8953b76e808b81fffa3639e746bb6ae0.jpg)
Brett Reynolds
Joined: May 26, 2023
Brett Reynolds teaches at Humber College. He's part of the team behind A Student's Introduction to English Grammar and is presently working with collaborators on a treebank project based on the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language and on a popular linguistics book. Beyond academia, Brett bikes, swims, lifts, and reads. He also spends more time than intended editing Wikipedia.
![You won’t bee-lieve how honeybees give directions. You won’t bee-lieve how honeybees give directions.](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_3840,h_2160,x_0,y_0/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/mentalfloss/01j33hk2q67g4cvbfwj8.jpg)
![English doesn’t always abide by its own rules. English doesn’t always abide by its own rules.](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_1998,h_1123,x_0,y_151/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/mentalfloss/01hbv3jbm6s4ts2s6hmp.jpg)
5 Ways the English Language Breaks Its Own Rules
![](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_3838,h_2158,x_0,y_0/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/mentalfloss/01h91fdtbx07g60bmcrq.jpg)
Speech Bubble: How Scientists Working in Antarctica Inadvertently Developed a New Accent
![Let’s go on a journey. Let’s go on a journey.](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_3838,h_2158,x_0,y_0/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/mentalfloss/01h7xc843vey492wgrnq.jpg)
Time Traveler’s Guide: Verb Tenses in 8 Languages From Around the World
Linguistic Siblings: 9 Pairs of Words With Surprisingly Shared Etymologies
The connections between words aren’t always as straightforward as the link between run and runner; often, figuring them out requires the subtle unraveling of linguistic evolution, the kind of detective work that makes etymology so fascinating.
5 Linguistic Illusions That Will Make You Go “Wait, What?”
Linguistic illusions—a phenomenon in which your judgment or understanding of a sentence or phrase conflicts with its actual meaning or structure—reveal how we process the world, and remind us that things aren’t always as they seem.