13 Little-Known Punctuation Marks We Should Be Using
Because sometimes, periods, commas, colons, semi-colons, dashes, hyphens, apostrophes, question marks, exclamation points, quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, braces, and ellipses won't do.
Because sometimes, periods, commas, colons, semi-colons, dashes, hyphens, apostrophes, question marks, exclamation points, quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, braces, and ellipses won't do.
Not everyone gives directions the way you do—in fact, the way people tell others how to get where they want to go can vary by city, town, and culture. Some of these directional systems might just change how you navigate the world.
Suggestions for what to call the period of time from 2000–2009 ranged from ‘the nillies’ and ‘the oh-ohs’ to ‘the double zeroes’ and ‘the noughties.’ So how’d we land on ‘the aughts’?
Next time you’re in the Hub, you can let your Masshole flag fly with these Boston slang terms that will have you sounding like a townie in no time.
Cricket chirps can reach 100 decibels. So why do we use them as a byword for ‘silence’?
Let’s hope no one tells you, “Eres tan feo/a qué hiciste llorar a una cebolla” on your next trip abroad.
‘Once Upon a Time’ appears in many fairy tales and stories. The phrase has a long history and a practical narrative purpose.
Roosevelt launched one of his most famous sayings at the Minnesota State Fair in September 1901—just two weeks before he became president.
Code-switching goes beyond language—here's what it means and why it happens.
It’s succinct enough to fit on a bumper sticker. But what did ‘knowledge is power’ originally mean?
Did 17th-century immigrants to the 13 colonies have modern British accents? First, we need to figure out what a “British accent” is.
Quotes like “one bad apple,” “money is the root of all evil,” and “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” have been entirely misinterpreted.
Study up on this breaking terminology so you know what you’re talking about you’re watching the sport at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
When the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, both 'pursuit' and 'happiness' had secondary definitions that change the meaning of the iconic quote.
As brothers Bob and Doug McKenzie on ‘SCTV,’ actors Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas made ‘hoser’ popular—and there are plenty of theories about the word’s origin.
Theodore Roosevelt called his domestic agenda of 1903 a ‘square deal.’ Let’s dig into the origins of the famous phrase.
Chris Evert’s tennis bracelets made tennis bracelets a thing. But the origin story gets mistold quite often.
This cheeky euphemism was kicking around years before Bart ever used it on “The Simpsons,” but it prompted some significant backlash in the early ‘90s.
There’s more to the upstairs-downstairs tragicomedy than the stranger in the basement.
Sadly, ‘PU’ isn’t an initialism for “Pretty unsavory!”, “Putrid, ugh!”, or even “Please use (deodorant)!”
The classic 1970s TV commercial is one of the most famous of all time, but no one ever actually utters its most quoted line.
The dog days of summer don’t actually have much to do with dogs. Instead, they relate to Sirius, otherwise known as the Dog Star.
In the 1980s, the U.S. Navy carried out a futile search for the “real” Dorothy.
Everyone from lexicographer Samuel Johnson to Prime Minister Winston Churchill has used the phrase—but where does it come from? Why a black dog?