Words

Hotels often offer a complimentary pastry and fruit breakfast.

Hotels offer pastries, fruit, and coffee as a guest perk. But what makes it a 'continental' breakfast?

The story of March Madness has everything: Chaucer, sex-crazed hares, Alice in Wonderland, lawsuits, and a basketball coach-turned-poet from Illinois.

The head of the society signed off for good, declaring that “The ignorance and laziness present in modern times have won!”

Sadly, ALDI doesn't stand for “Awesome Lunch and Dinner Items” or “Always Loving Discounts, Inc.”

The first ALDI locations bore a different name, but the owners had changed it by the time they had brought their grocery stores to the U.S.

Height isn't the only difference between horses and ponies.

Knowing your equines is no mere horseplay. Here's how to tell the difference between horses, ponies, and even miniature horses.

Virginians may soon be able to legally swear in public.

The state has prohibited public expletives since 1792, with offenders facing a $250 fine. That's about to change.

If scientists can't develop a vaccine for a new virus quickly enough, an epidemic can turn into a pandemic.

Definitions of 'pandemic' and 'epidemic' differ, but it’s not always clear which one best describes a disease outbreak like the new coronavirus.

It's a question that Americans have been arguing about for decades: How exactly do you pronounce Nevada?

V is the only letter in the English language that makes itself heard no matter which words it appears in.

IKEA, the beloved Swedish home furnishings chain, has a coherent naming strategy that its non-swedophone customers are missing out on.

Based on this essay, Guy Beringer—the father of brunch—almost definitely would have approved of those bottomless mimosas.

The Romantic poets' verse was beautiful and inspired—and so were their insults, though not in the same way.

The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images

When you think of Colonial America, soldiers marching to fife and drum and Benjamin Franklin flying a kite are probably what come to mind—but some awesome slang came out of the period, too.

Inventor Elijah McCoy is may or may not be "The Real McCoy."

The popularity of the surname McCoy makes it difficult to pinpoint one origin on the phrase, but here are the leading theories.

It’s part of a tourism campaign to take the heat off clogged vacation spots like Amsterdam and other popular cities.

Those subtly apologetic follow-up emails could be weakening your original message—and affecting others’ impression of you, too.

An illustration of an ancient Yule celebration, as seen in the German newspaper Die Gartenlaube in 1880.

The word "yule" gets thrown around a lot during the Christmas season, but what does it even mean? Well, like so many of the holiday's traditions, its origins are a bit complex.

This year, the nonbinary pronoun "they" got a new dictionary definition and some high-profile endorsements.

The biggest baby-naming trend of the decade? Ignoring the most popular naming trends. While some names still retain popularity, parents are opting for more unusual names.