Latest articles by James Harbeck
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
The Explainer -
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
The Explainer -
Why pain is expressed differently in different languages
The Explainer Pain is universal. Its expression is not.
The Explainer
