WORDS

12 Words English Got from the Aztecs

The names of several familiar foods come to us from Nahautl, the language of the Aztecs. But cuisine is not the only source of English words with an Aztec background.

What is the Most Complex Chinese Character?

Chinese characters are made up of strokes. Learning to write them involves not only learning where all the strokes go, but also the order in which they are supposed to be written and the direction of each individual stroke (left to right, up to down, etc.

The Origins of 9 Great British Insults

For as long as people have been speaking the English language, they’ve been deploying it to poke fun at one another.

11 Names for Alphabetical Antics and Other Word Games

What do you call a word that spells another word backwards or a word that looks the same upside down? When terms for these orthographic puzzlers didn’t exist, logolologists were happy to invent some. Here are a few.

8 Symbols That We Turned Into Words

The symbols we use also have names: dollar sign, treble clef, asterisk, etc. But sometimes the name for a symbol takes on a different sort of meaning.

11 Spam Comments That Look Like Drunk Thesauruses (And Why)

Nothing is certain but death, taxes, and spam comments on your blog. One way to avoid repeating the same comment over and over without having to write thousands of different original comments is to replace the words in one comment with various synonyms.

7 Words Brought to You by British Colonialism

Words we use every day in modern English owe their inclusion in dictionaries to a British army officer picking up a few slang words from the cotton traders in Bangalore, street food vendors in the Caribbean, or the Boer warriors two fought against Britons

How Did Caesarean Sections Get Their Name?

Named after the great Roman emperor, Julius Caesar, yet he was not the first baby born by the procedure.

The Pig Latins of 11 Other Languages

Rules of language games in other languages may vary, but here are some general guidelines for fun in 11 different languages.

Who Was "Miranda" of the Miranda Warning?

Even if you’ve never had your own brush with the law, you no doubt know the Miranda warning. But who was it named after?

Where Do the Words “Mom” and “Dad” Come From?

Even the Oxford English Dictionary admits they have no evidence of the actual origin.

9 Extremely Pretentious Latin and Greek Plurals

Here are some uncommon but etymologically sound plurals that you may employ for petty pedantry at your own risk. You are better off using them in the fun way, though they are most likely to be received as confusing.

Why is English Spelling So Messed Up?

If you're a kid learning how to write, English spelling can seem like a cruel prank.

10 of the Most Expensive Typos in History

An ode to proofreaders.

21 Creative TV Edits of Naughty Movie Lines

There's a lot of language in movies that you can't show on TV. We're so used to the standard ways of dubbing over words for TV that we hardly notice them—but sometimes the dubs or alternate versions do something so unusual that they stand out.

You'll want to add these mixed oaths to your vocabularly, dad-sizzle it!

10 Old-Fashioned Swears to Spice up Your Cussin'

Taboos against what we would consider pretty mild exclamations led swearers of years past to come up with creative substitutions, and they've left their mark on our vocabulary.

Eh is fine, but why don't you work some of these other Canadianisms into your conversation?

23 Canadianisms Way More Interesting Than "Eh?"

A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles is a wonderful place to search or browse through the wordy history of our neighbors to the North.

Cory Calhoun, Master Anagrammist

11 Terms from a Knock-Your-Socks-Off 1943 Song about Slang

"Murder, He Says" gives a killer-diller run-down of all the hep words of the day, served up with some serious zest. About half of these terms have fallen out of use, but a bunch of them have lasted. Many of them got their start in the jazz world.

The Origins of 10 Great Insults

Here are the origins of some familiar insults that will make calling out all the rubes, bums, cretins, and punks in your life a more fulfilling experience.

How Many Languages is it Possible to Know?

There are millions of people, even in the mostly monolingual US, who speak more than one language at home. Competence in three languages is not unusual. But what about 10, 20, 30, 100 languages? What's the upper limit on the number of languages a person c

6 Words English Got From Hindi

During the British Raj, or dominion over India (1757-1947), English gained a number of words from Hindi and other Indian languages. Linguists refer to this as “borrowing,” but we’re not likely to return any of this linguistic wealth.

11 Phrases from Downton Abbey to Bolster Your Vocabulary

As we've been following the trials and tribulations of the Granthams, Angela Tung of Wordnik has been collecting interesting terms from the show.

Never wonder what you should call a baby alpaca again.

11 Lesser-Known Names for Baby Animals

We know that infant chickens are called chicks and baby ducks are called ducklings—but how should we refer to the newborn offspring of animals that don’t often get cooed over in their early developmental stages?

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