Latest articles by James Harbeck
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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 possessives
feature For one thing, it's not a proper suffix
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Octopus, octopi... octopodem? A guide to humiliating grammar nerds with Latin inflections
feature How to school grammar nerds with Latin inflections
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How foreign languages mutate English words
The Explainer In Japan, baseball is beisuboru. In China, microphone is maikefeng. And in Germany, cell phone is Handy
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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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If you think these animals say their own names, you are wrong
The Explainer Listen to that cuckoo again. It's not saying "cuckoo."
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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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10 crazy prescription drug names
The Explainer Appellations for medications can be a bit loopy
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8 bizarre sounds you've probably made without knowing it
The Explainer And their prevalence in several foreign languages
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It's totally okay to write incomplete sentences
The Explainer Sentence fragments are your friend. Just ask William Shakespeare
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The strange Scandinavian pronunciations of common English words
The Explainer In the original Finnish, that sauna you're baking in is really more of a sowna
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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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Hey, grammar nerds! Stop freaking out about 'alot.'
The Explainer We need to get ahold of ourselves
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'Tis the season for archaic English
The Explainer Confused by "God rest ye merry, gentlemen"? Of course thou art!
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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 wines
The Explainer You'd think a Sauvignon Blanc characterized as smelling like cat pee would be awful. You'd be wrong.
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'I know, right?': The anatomy of a wonderfully nonsensical phrase
The Explainer And why we insist on saying things that make no literal sense
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Why it's difficult to tell a Canadian accent from a Californian one
The Explainer Not so easy, eh?
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Myself, I don't see a problem
The Explainer Are you using the word 'myself' the right way?
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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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9 famous quotes that are (technically) grammatically incorrect
The Explainer From a Yogi Berra-ism to the Second Amendment, America's best-known sayings aren't exactly paragons of linguistic perfection
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In defense of the semicolon
The Explainer Kurt Vonnegut called the semicolon a "transvestite hermaphrodite representing absolutely nothing." He was wrong.
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Peculiar figure skating terms: Explained
The Explainer Let's be honest: You have no idea what the difference between a Lutz and an Axel is
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