WORDS

What is an Irish goodbye—and why is it called that?

Clichés are viewed as a sign of lazy writing, but they didn’t develop that reputation over night.

Some nouns only have a plural form, regardless of how we think of them. They are known as ‘pluralia tantum,’ Latin for “plural only.”

From ‘cakewalk’ to ‘no can do,’ the origins of these common idioms and sayings are surprisingly dark.

The words ‘fall’ and ‘autumn’ appeared around the same time in Great Britain, but only one of the seasonal names is still used there today.

Try spicing your fall with a few of these rustic charmers, drawn from the pages of Washington Irving.

History is filled with figures who were single-handedly—yet often undeservedly—held responsible for epic societal failures. But what do goats have to do with it?

We don’t know how these Victorian slang terms ever fell out of fashion, but we propose bringing them back, as soon as possible.

Many bad words come and go, but these six have withstood the tests of time. Here’s how they came to be.

Here’s how to avoid bungling 20 commonly mispronounced Spanish names.

Don’t get embarrassed if you can’t spell ‘embarrass.’ It’s apparently—not ‘apparantly’—a pretty common error.

Ever wonder why there’s a ‘k’ in ‘knead,’ or a ‘d’ in ‘Wednesday’? While there isn’t always a good reason for why some English words are spelled the way they are, there are reasons.