Latest articles by James Harbeck
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The perplexing pronunciations of words with X's and Q's
The Explainer Blame the Romans
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What language is your baby speaking?
The Explainer Your linguistic guide to baby babbling
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A linguist's guide to HULK SMASH
The Explainer Dissecting the strange, wonderful grammar of Hulkspeak
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Quiz: Drug brand or sci-fi name?
The Explainer No Google cheating!
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How to be a champagne snob
The Explainer Warning: This might require a saber
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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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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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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 brief history of royal baby names
The Explainer Will and Kate's wee one will be the seventh British king to be called George
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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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Why pain is expressed differently in different languages
The Explainer Pain is universal. Its expression is not.
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9 compellingly strange letters you don't know about
The Explainer Meet eng, thorn, hwair, and more
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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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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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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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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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It's all right to spell it 'alright'
The Explainer Relax, language peevers
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A herstory (or mansplanation) of portpersonteau words
The Explainer From broceries to guybrarian to Galentine's Day, we often employ wordplay to poke at differences between the sexes
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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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