Latest articles by James Harbeck
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What Americans will sound like in 2050feature Part of our ongoing series on America in 2050
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What we talk about when we talk about (word) copulationfeature Not to mention resultatives and substantives
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What the English of Shakespeare, Beowulf, and King Arthur actually sounded likefeature Shakespeare in Love it ain't
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10 words we've forgotten how to pronouncefeature Chances are you've been saying 'blackguard' wrong — to name but one example
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Why do we fight so hard to preserve endangered languages?feature The divisive case of Pitkern
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Why do we have so many words for yes and no?feature A linguistic investigation into yup, yep, nah, and nope
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Why we should stop using an apostrophe s for possessivesfeature For one thing, it's not a proper suffix
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Octopus, octopi... octopodem? A guide to humiliating grammar nerds with Latin inflectionsfeature How to school grammar nerds with Latin inflections
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10 crazy prescription drug namesThe Explainer Appellations for medications can be a bit loopy
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Aunt, adult, pajamas: Why can't we agree how to pronounce common words?The Explainer Call it the problem of toilet-paper-roll words
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What do the names of British kings and queens actually mean?The Explainer King Wealth-Guard, Queen Bitterness, and King Desire-Helmet, for starters
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How do prescription drugs get such crazy names?The Explainer There's a method to the madness of naming drugs atorvastatin and fluoxetine
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'I know, right?': The anatomy of a wonderfully nonsensical phraseThe Explainer And why we insist on saying things that make no literal sense
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How foreign languages mutate English wordsThe Explainer In Japan, baseball is beisuboru. In China, microphone is maikefeng. And in Germany, cell phone is Handy
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The future of English includes an apostrophe-less 'thats'The Explainer Whether you like it or not...
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17 disgusting descriptions for delicious winesThe Explainer You'd think a Sauvignon Blanc characterized as smelling like cat pee would be awful. You'd be wrong.
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8 bizarre sounds you've probably made without knowing itThe Explainer And their prevalence in several foreign languages
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Grammar quiz: Do you know the passive voice?The Explainer Many people claim they revile the passive. But most have trouble identifying it correctly.
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The strange Scandinavian pronunciations of common English wordsThe Explainer In the original Finnish, that sauna you're baking in is really more of a sowna
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Hey, grammar nerds! Stop freaking out about 'alot.'The Explainer We need to get ahold of ourselves
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Why it's difficult to tell a Canadian accent from a Californian oneThe Explainer Not so easy, eh?
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'Tis the season for archaic EnglishThe Explainer Confused by "God rest ye merry, gentlemen"? Of course thou art!
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It's totally okay to write incomplete sentencesThe Explainer Sentence fragments are your friend. Just ask William Shakespeare
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Myself, I don't see a problemThe Explainer Are you using the word 'myself' the right way?
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