Latest articles by James Harbeck
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Prepositions: The super-handy and horribly confusing widgets of language
The Explainer To, from, of, by: The little linguistic bits that we use to fit in gaps and hold things together or keep them apart. But it's all rather arbitrary.
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English spelling is terrible. Other languages are worse.
The Explainer Many languages use an alphabet borrowed from a different language. It's like building a dining room set using an IKEA kit for a dresser.
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Don't buy into nonsensical etymologies of the F-word
The Explainer Or any other imagineered claims that common words were derived from winking acronyms
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A linguistic dissection of 7 annoying teenage sounds
The Explainer Voiced alveolar stop and breathy-voiced low back unrounded vowel — better known as duhhh
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Everything you wanted to know about danglers but were too afraid to ask
The Explainer Is it ever ok to dangle your participle in public?
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The fascinating linguistic legacy of the Crimean War
The Explainer You can thank a 160-year-old battle for a famous poem, distinctive headwear, and cozy sweaters
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How to read your shampoo bottle
The Explainer Don't be stumped by the ingredients in your beauty products
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4 very old words for very new things
The Explainer Camera? Internet? Those words are 6,000 years old.
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6 quests to fix English's messed-up spelling
The Explainer Some succeeded. Some failed. Some made things worse.
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How and when to use 'whom' instead of 'who'
The Explainer 'Whom' is just like 'who' with a bowtie on it
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How did 'expletive,' 'explicit,' and 'exploit' become such sleazy words?
The Explainer The original, often innocent meanings of words that begin with expl are being overshadowed by naughtier ones
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Kill the apostrophe!
The Explainer We would all be better off without it
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You're using that dash wrong
The Explainer A comprehensive guide to our language's horizontal lines — from the humble hyphen to the three-em dash
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What's the point of baby talk?
The Explainer The science is divided over the efficacy of motherese
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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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'You and I' vs. 'You and me'
The Explainer Figuring out when to use which is actually very simple
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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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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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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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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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Why so strangely Yoda speaks
The Explainer Hear something odd in his syntax, you do
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9 confusing ways to pluralize words
The Explainer Why must we make everything so complicated?
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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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The perplexing pronunciations of words with X's and Q's
The Explainer Blame the Romans
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