Mental Floss

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German is known for its extremely long compound words—Mark Twain once complained that some were “so long they have a perspective.” This quick video demonstrates how those words are constructed.

Arika Okrent


There’s no doubt about it—rotting food is gross.

The word ‘gross,’ which came to English from French, took on a variety of senses in English related to size. But the ‘gross of today is different from the ‘gross’ of the past thanks to teens.

Arika Okrent