Latest articles by James Harbeck
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10 annoying sounds you need to stop making
The Explainer You definitely make some of these noises, even if you don't realize it
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Linguistic invasion! The foreign influence of English's political and military words
The Explainer It might seem like our language is under attack. But in reality, we're the ones taking linguistic prisoners
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Honeymoons, babymoons, and the surprising origin story of -moon words
The Explainer When the word was coined, honeymoon involved neither honey nor tropical getaways
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The perplexing pronunciations of words with X's and Q's
The Explainer Blame the Romans
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How languages are like food
The Explainer You've had gumbo, but have you tried Bislama?
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It's all right to spell it 'alright'
The Explainer Relax, language peevers
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Why linguists freak out about 'absofreakinglutely'
The Explainer They don't even really know what to call it
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A linguist's guide to HULK SMASH
The Explainer Dissecting the strange, wonderful grammar of Hulkspeak
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Why so strangely Yoda speaks
The Explainer Hear something odd in his syntax, you do
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In defense of 'anyways'
The Explainer This is not a bit of backwater American slang. In fact, it's a word with nearly 1,000 years of history.
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How to be a champagne snob
The Explainer Warning: This might require a saber
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How advertisers trick your brain by turning adjectives into nouns
The Explainer It's all about the bisociation
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The Netherlands, Holland, and the Dutch: Why some countries have so many different names
The Explainer Chalk it up to the vagaries of time, and a Germanic tribe or two
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10 words that are badly broken
The Explainer Some words are born from strange splits that were never meant to happen
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The curious linguistic history of pineapples and butterflies
The Explainer One word is a historical outlier; the other a descendant of mythology
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There's a number of reasons the grammar of this headline could infuriate you
The Explainer Blame our shifting definitions of the singular and the plural
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A linguistic tour of a 'night out' around the world
The Explainer And how to tell if it's a Canadian or an Australian asking you out
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'You and I' vs. 'You and me'
The Explainer Figuring out when to use which is actually very simple
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The science of making a guitar sound like a human voice
feature Or what puts the "wah" in the wah-wah
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Quiz: Drug brand or sci-fi name?
The Explainer No Google cheating!
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Capital letters: FTW or WTF?
The Explainer Your comprehensive, unassailable guide on when and where to capitalize
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A brief history of African click words
The Explainer In much of southern Africa, it can be more polite to click
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Why pain is expressed differently in different languages
The Explainer Pain is universal. Its expression is not.
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