That's What They Say

During the pandemic, many of us have spent much of our time at home cleaning out closets, basements and garages, getting rid of things we no longer use or…

It can be helpful, as well as potentially confusing, to have vague expressions of time such as “by and by.”The more we thought about this expression, the…

In honor of tax season, Merriam Webster recently tweeted the origins of “mortgage.” It’s derived from two Old French words meaning “death” and…

We're not exactly sure what effect the internet and other changes in technology are having on English. It could be that changes in the language are…

It's clearly different to talk about a large country and the country at large, but these two meanings of "large" are historically related.A listener named…

Something that’s out of your hands is different from something that’s out of hand, which is usually different from something that’s offhand. So which…

This week we're getting back to our roots. Our Latin roots, that is.A listener named Seth Epstein asked us how to pronounce the Latin phrase "in situ." He…

There are pundits who really don't like it if people call them "pundents." As a listener pointed out to us, this mispronunciation isn't uncommon.Susan…

This week we looked at two words that have nothing to do with each other, aside from the fact that they both begin with “p.” At least they’ve got one…

We keep track of things, we lose track of things, we run track, and listen to tracks. Sometimes though, we confuse “track” with “tract.”Recently, a…