Words

Just because you’re tired doesn’t mean your language has to be.

It’s an error you see a lot these days, and it happens for a variety of reasons.

It predates Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore's on-screen exchange, and the copy machine.

America is a worldwide brand of sorts, but it doesn’t carry the same connotations everywhere.

Many of the names from a galaxy far, far away have their origins in the real world.

The title was made up as a way to avoid commenting on the marital status of a woman.

Here’s a sampling of terms that went overboard. Be their lexical lifeboat.

As languages change, so do pronunciations.

The "Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary" is the first work of its kind to be published in nearly 50 years.

He'd had enuf of the old way. Known for his uncompromising stance on many issues, in the early 1900s Roosevelt used the full power of his position to try to force through several hundred new spelling reforms.

It's human nature to conceive of abstract ideas through more immediate, concrete experiences—which is to say, through metaphors. Most of the words we have for abstract concepts began this way.

Call us mint jelly ...

And how did they get that name?

Bullet_Chained (monsters), AJWAD CREATIVE (SPEECH BUBBLE) // ISTOCK VIA GETTY IMAGES PLUS

On Halloween, witches and werewolves, ghosts and ghouls, and demons and devils stalk the streets for tricks or treats. But the real tricks and treats—at least for the horror-loving word nerds among us—might just be the strange and far-flung origins of the

SMAISMRMILMEPOETALEUMIBUNENUGTTAUIRAS

Pull apart the word "trivia," and you’ll be left with two fairly familiar Latin roots.

Let me put this right up front. The headline to this post is slightly misleading, but not dishonest.

By some accounts, the average person owns 19 pairs of shoes. But it’s not just our closets that are overflowing with sneakers, loafers, pumps, and wedges. It’s also our vocabulary.