17 Bizarre Work-Related Ailments
Today's work-related ailments have nothing on these (mostly) historical diseases. You'll be glad you're not suffering from Hatter’s Shakes—or worse, Chimney Sweep's Scrotum.
Today's work-related ailments have nothing on these (mostly) historical diseases. You'll be glad you're not suffering from Hatter’s Shakes—or worse, Chimney Sweep's Scrotum.
Whether you 'banana' or 'sweat the pipes' at your job, the OED wants to know about it.
Pendle Hill is really Hill Hill Hill. Here are 11 others like that.
It was actually written about another set of postal workers from 500 BCE.
Gammon and spinach!
In 1986, the famed news anchor spent a week defending the puzzling new way he ended his broadcasts.
Typos and other errors have always managed to find their way into print, even in the most august of publications.
For decades, linguists have been able to use the quirks of written texts to pinpoint the author. The process, called stylometric analysis or stylometry, has dozens of legal and academic applications.
Onomatopoeia is responsible for a lot more words than you might think. Laugh might have been invented to sound like, well, a laugh. Owl, crow, and raven are all descended from Old English words (ule, crawe, hræfn) that were meant to imitate the owl’s hoot
Writers often turn to a thesaurus to diversify their vocabulary and add nuance to their prose. But looking up synonyms and antonyms in a thesaurus can help anyone—writer or not—find the most vivid, incisive words to communicate thoughts and ideas.
A Vermont-based writer is cataloguing rare scripts that are disappearing due to political conflicts and globalization.
9. CRUMPSY: Short-tempered and irritable.
Winnie is a bear. So why do we call him a Pooh?
Take your 'za vocabulary beyond 'za.
Dr. Sandra Lee popped by the Mental Floss offices to define everything from whiteheads and blackheads to two types of cysts.
Following this tip may be the easiest way to improve your writing.
Here are some word endings that have become productive to varying degrees.
And you thought choosing whether you wanted your Waffle House hash browns smothered, covered, or chunked was complicated.
When some words hit the big time, they left clunky related words behind.
File these away in your brainpan.
From "apple-knocker" to "Xanadu."
It's something many of us have experienced.
Add a little fun to your vocabulary by dropping one of these 20 long-overlooked Spanish phrases into conversation.
It starts out easy and gets progressively harder.