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Mental Floss

Language

Arika Okrent|
By some accounts, the average person owns 19 pairs of shoes. But it’s not just our closets that are overflowing with sneakers, loafers, pumps, and wedges. It’s also our vocabulary.
John Kelly|
Concepts like "nose" and "tongue" share some of the same sounds no matter what language you're listening to.
Shaunacy Ferro|
This secretive jargon was deliberately designed to confuse the authorities.
Meg Van Huygen|
Chances are if you’ve ever learned a language you’ll have stumbled across a few false friends—words that look (but don't necessarily sound) similar in two different languages, but differ entirely in their meanings.
Paul Anthony Jones|
Some plurals work in unexpected ways.
Arika Okrent|
The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang pinpoints comedian Jimmy Durante as the first person to use this meaty metaphor.
Kara Kovalchik|
What is a frown? A look of displeasure, made with the eyebrows? Or a sad face, made with downturned mouth?
Arika Okrent|
It can be shocking to realize that we are able to follow rules that no one ever taught us explicitly.
Arika Okrent|
One podcasting network is trying to help bring back America’s disappearing regional slang.
Anna Green|
Sometime around the 7th century, a grammarian got fed up and started collecting all the annoying mistakes that people kept making in Latin. He wrote them up in the 'Appendix Probi,' a straightforward list of the “say this, not that” variety.
Arika Okrent|
You keep using that word…
Jordan Rosenfeld|
What 'drug' means to you depends on when you lived.
Paul Anthony Jones|
It’s easy to guess what an ancestor of someone named Cook, Carpenter, or Smith did for a living. With other occupational surnames, though, either the word or the trade has become obsolete, so the meaning is hidden.
Judith Herman|
Next time you spot a misbehaving child, or you want to seize the night rather than the day, you’ll have the perfect phrase at hand.
Paul Anthony Jones|
Make sure to use them the next time you dither.
Mark Peters|
Why is your favorite place to relax called a couch?
Joan Vos MacDonald|
You might be one of a lucky type who rarely attract bites, or you might be someone skeeters love to feast on—in which case, you’ll want plenty of ammunition for name-calling. Here are a few choice terms for mosquitoes courtesy of the Dictionary of America
Angela Tung|
Wow your friends during your Olympic watch party with these winning, weird, and wonderful Olympic words and their origins.
John Kelly|
A tilde can mean the difference between "pain" and "rock."
Arika Okrent|
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