Latest articles by Arika Okrent
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Why is 'colonel' spelled that way?
feature Blame the French — and a little tactic called "dissimilation"
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How eavesdropping was punished in medieval times
feature The problem of eavesdropping dates back to the 1370s, according to one historian
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5 words that are spelled weirdly because someone got the etymology wrong
feature Never run with sizars
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5 nations that sit out of alphabetical order at the UN General Assembly
feature When you're a club with 193 members, as the United Nations is, it can be hard to keep things fair for everybody
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11 teeny units of measurement for tiny things
feature When someone says they'll be "back in two shakes!" they're probably overpromising...
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The best shots fired in the Oxford comma wars
feature A look at the strongest points on each side of the great grammar debate
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Our favorite regional words from waaaay Northern Michigan
feature Holy wah! To make it in the U.P., you've gotta have sisu.
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24 Canadianisms way more interesting than 'eh?'
feature Toronto is nicknamed Hogtown, and if you're ever in the mood for a mixture of tomato juice and beer, ask for a Calgary Redeye
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11 facts yü should know about the umlaut
feature Ever wonder why the plural of "mouse" is "mice"? Blame umlaut.
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Impress your friends with these 18 fancy words for specific shapes
feature There's even a word for horseshoe-shaped (though it takes just as long to say as "shaped like a horseshoe")
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5 baffling foreign-language versions of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song
feature "Here is my kingdom, here is where I strive. Here I will reign as Prince of Bel-Air."
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Listen to Frozen's 'Let It Go' in 25 languages
feature English, French, German, Dutch, Mandarin, Swedish, Japanese, Polish, Hungarian...
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Why isn't 'Arkansas' pronounced like 'Kansas'?
feature It goes back to two Native American tribes. And the French.
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9 scientific experiments that used '90s TV shows to manipulate subjects
feature Power Rangers really can make you want to punch things
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Fun with the interactive Algonquian language map
feature If you don't know your Plains Cree from your Innu, this map can help
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Car-a-mel or car-mel? 3 reasons for syllabically ambiguous words
feature The wild world of diphthongs and epentheses
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18 academic papers about '90s TV shows
feature If we can learn about the ancient Romans by studying their drinking songs, surely we can learn about ourselves by studying our TV shows
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14 abstract nouns we need to bring back
feature Fiercety, seriosity, debonairity...
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Pop song titles are losing the love
feature In recent years, the percentage of music hits with love in the song title has been only 30 percent of what it was in 1980. Why?
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Can y'all be used to refer to a single person?
feature The singular y'all is the Loch Ness Monster of dialect study
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11 places to visit on a tour of the English language
feature Experience the places where our ancestors recorded the first English word, sentence, and conversation
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9 extremely pretentious Latin and Greek plurals
feature What do you do when you're talking about more than one octopus?
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11 mots merveilleux recently added to the French dictionary
feature The term "French kiss" is finally being captured in the eponymous language with a single word: galoche
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The letter O: Made complex by 17th century calligraphy
feature In the hands of master calligraphers, the humble O can shed its simplicity, its symmetry, and even its bounded borders
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