Latest articles by Arika Okrent
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15 words you didn't realize were named after people
feature The hidden history of eponyms, revealed
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21 wonderful words for wind
feature Do you know a willy-willy from a williwaw?
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Why is 'colonel' spelled that way?
feature Blame the French — and a little tactic called "dissimilation"
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Where did the word 'dude' come from?
feature A massive, decade-long "dude" research project has finally yielded convincing results
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11 totally redundant place names
feature Lake Tahoe means Lake Lake. La Brea Tar Pits means The Tar Tar Pits. And more!
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11 brand names with plural problems
feature We're looking at you, LEGO
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Why are 'rhyme' and 'rhythm' spelled like that?
feature Blame some showoffs in the 16th century
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Fascinating facts about 10 national anthems
feature Andorra is the only nation whose anthem has a first-person narrative. France's anthem is incredibly gory. And more!
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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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Haiti is teaching kids in the wrong language
The Explainer Most Haitians speak Haitian Creole. And yet, the country's traditional language of education is French — which less than 10 percent of Haitians speak fluently
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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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11 classy insults with classical Greek and Latin roots
feature Next time you punk a ructabunde, don't be so excerebrose
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12 onomatopoeias from around the world
feature Chik chik pok pok is the sound of a train in Korean. Ghrutu ghrutu is pig grunting in Georgian. And more!
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21 fancy medical terms for mundane problems
feature Overdid it last night? Just explain to your boss that you've got a bit of veisalgia.
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7 sentences that sound crazy but are still grammatical
feature Believe it or not, this sentence is grammatical: "The rat the cat the dog chased killed ate the malt."
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11 remnants of the Bastille you can still see today
feature A piece of the French prison's actual moat wall? You'll find it in the subway.
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9 little translation mistakes that caused big problems
feature The importance of good translation is most obvious when things go wrong
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16 characters from other languages that make great emoticons
feature Pro tip: Obscure Indian alphabets can really step up your game
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11 words from a 1940s song about slang
feature Betty Hutton sings about how hard it is to understand her boyfriend, who uses too much slang
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9 fascinating facts about the schwa
feature You probably don't realize it, but schwa is the most common vowel sound in English
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11 versions of 'Average Joe' from other countries
feature Morten Menigmand sounds anything but normal. And yet...
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Listen and compare: 15 different Irish accents
feature Not all accents on the Emerald Isle are the same
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Now you can Rickroll your friends (or enemies) in Klingon
feature "I am certainly considering a blood oath with you."
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What online dictionaries are learning about us
feature They've been tracking your word lookups for nearly two decades. And the results are striking
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