Latest articles by Arika Okrent
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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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15 words plagued by unusual silent letters
feature Damn you, tricky consonant clusters
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Dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells: Why do we call weights 'bells'?
feature It dates back to a fitness craze of the 1700s
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How well does Mark Zuckerberg speak Chinese?
feature It helps that he gets such a positive, almost thrilled reaction to everything he says
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15 tricky words — and how to pronounce them hilariously wrong
feature Beware of YouTube videos bearing pronunciation advice
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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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The sign language interpreter for Mayor de Blasio's press conference was deaf. How does that work?
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These fascinating maps show countries as named in their own languages
feature We hear Magyarország is lovely this time of year
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Explained: English's 3 different prefixes for 'half'
feature Semi, hemi, demi
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10 words with difficult-to-remember meanings
feature It's okay. We're confused, too.
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Why is 'colonel' spelled that way?
feature Blame the French — and a little tactic called "dissimilation"
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26 fancy, unusual plurals that work like 'attorneys general'
feature Be careful or the grammar police might slap you with multiple courts-martial
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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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The secret emotional lives of 5 punctuation marks
feature From the angry period to the dramatic asterisk...
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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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How an awesomesauce new suffix came to be
feature This etymology is seriously nerdsauce
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15 harsh things critics said about The Nutcracker after its 1892 premiere
feature "It's a pity that so much good music is expended on such nonsense"
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How to tell whether you've got angst, ennui, or weltschmerz
feature Are you dissatisfied and worried in an introspective, overthinking German way? Or do you have sadness in your heart for the world that can never be?
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The true origin story of the football huddle
feature It was actually first invented by deaf players
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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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18 apple varieties with badass names
feature Bloody ploughman? Razor russet? These aren't your grandmother's apples.
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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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5 boring subjects translated into clickbait headlines
feature "You NEED to see this hot model (NSFW) of ethnic politics and foreign policy"
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Where do U.S. coin names come from?
feature It's all about fractions, raw materials, and history
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