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Q: I think you can say, “The new bits last longer than the old bits,” but you can’t say, “The new bits last shorter than the old bits.” Why is [...]
Q: Why do we refer to memorizing as “learning by heart”? Wouldn’t “learning by brain” make more sense? A: The expression “learn by heart” reflects an ancient belief that the [...]
Q: In the phrase “spick and span,” the word “spick” seems to be bound to “span.” It doesn’t stand on its own. Is there a concept for words that are [...]
Q: I am reading Ben-Hur (1880) by Lew Wallace and I have come across a word, “lewen,” that I cannot find in any dictionary. It appears to be an architectural [...]
Q: I’m perplexed by the use of “bad boy” to refer to an object. For example, a tool: “This bad boy is very useful.” Can you shed light on this [...]
Q: I couldn’t find anything on the verb “gress,” yet it forms the root of many often used words today. How about a take on the apparently outdated verb and [...]
Q: I once heard that “jealousy” is a feeling about someone we think we have a right to (such as an intimate partner) and “envy” is a feeling about something [...]
Q: Why do we say “roof of the mouth” rather than “ceiling”? A friend asked me this and I had no idea but I thought maybe you would. A: The [...]
Q: Your recent post about “repair” refers to guests who “repaired to the drawing room.” That made me wonder about the origin of “drawing room.” I doubt it was ever [...]
Q: This kind of construction always puzzles me: “He built his home on the banks of the Ohio River.” Can the plural “banks” refer to the land on just one [...]
Q: Have you ever looked into “after” in the context of “What y’after?” I can’t see any relationship between the “behind” and the “pursuing” meanings of the word. A: Both [...]
Q: I am trying to find the source of the expression “emotional baggage,” but references seem few and far between. Any pointing in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. [...]
Q: I recently came across the use of “donjon” for an inner tower of a castle. I assume the word is somehow related to “dungeon.” A: Yes, both English words, [...]
Q: How did the verb “repair” come to mean to move to another place as well as to fix something? A: The verbs “repair” (to fix) and “repair” (to go) [...]
Q: Where does the expression “talking head” originate from? And why has it become so pejorative? A: When the term first appeared in the mid-19th century, it referred to mythical [...]
[Note: In observance of Memorial Day, we’d like to share an article that Stewart wrote for United Press International in 1971 about the last day in the life of an [...]
Q: Where does the expression “off the cuff” come from? A: The use of “off the cuff” to mean without preparation apparently comes from notes jotted on one’s shirt cuffs. [...]
Q: I see the verb “critique” used all the time in place of what I believe is the correct word—“criticize.” I thought “critique” meant to analyze the pros and cons, [...]
Q: My wife asked me about the expression “happy as a clam,” and I had to admit I knew nothing about it. But I am sure you do. A: English [...]
Q: I first heard the expression “one of the best there is” in a game from 2011, and it’s been on my mind ever since. Shouldn’t it be “one of [...]
This is another of those words that are kind of words, being in the dictionary, but also kind of not, since they’re not actually used or understood by anyone (except [...]
It’s a lot spiffier than this antiquated relic of the 2000s, but it covers a congruent mix of language-related topics. The About page features a Chekhov quote and a list [...]
My wife asked me why matrimony meant marriage whereas patrimony meant something entirely different, and I had no answer for her, so I googled around. Wiktionary is no help: From [...]
Jesmyn Ward’s 2011 novel Salvage the Bones was one of my birthday presents this year, and I just got through reading it. If you want the plot laid out, you [...]
Nitsuh Abebe writes in the NY Times (archived) about a kerfuffle that had hitherto escaped me but is obviously in my wheelhouse, “Whose Punctuation Is More Human: Yours or A.I.’s?”: [...]
I heard a piece by the American composer and clarinetist Derek Bermel and liked it, so I looked him up and discovered he’d written a piece called “Language Instruction” that [...]
I was over at XIX век and happened to glance at the list of Russian literature sites in the right margin, and my eye fell on the obdurately lowercase obdurodon. [...]
As I said back in 2014, John Berryman is one of my favorite American poets, and I welcome the imminent appearance of Only Sing: 152 Uncollected Dream Songs; Shane McCrae, [...]
I was reading James Hill’s NY Times piece “In This Parisian Atelier, Bookbinding Is a Family Art” (archived), which describes the work done in the Atelier Devauchelle and has gorgeous [...]
For as long as I’ve been studying Russian (over half a century now), I’ve been amused, intrigued, and occasionally irritated by the cliché of the “Russian soul,” about which many [...]
Kasia Boddy (born in Aberdeen, grew up in Glasgow, studied at Edinburgh, teaches at Cambridge) has a good review essay on Dorothy Parker at the LRB (Vol. 47 No. 16 [...]
A reader sent me Edward Denny’s Atlas Obscura post World’s Largest Pewter Tankard, saying: There are a few things of linguistic interest here, including a few little puns, but the [...]
Seamus Perry reviews Zachary Leader’s Ellmann’s Joyce: The Biography of a Masterpiece and Its Maker for the LRB (Vol. 47 No. 16 · 11 September 2025; archived), and I find [...]
The Guardian story I’m posting (by Kate Connolly) is adequately represented by its headline: Doorbell prankster that tormented residents of German apartments turns out to be a slug. Here are [...]
I’m very fond of this poem by Michael Symmons Roberts from the new TLS (which has gone over to a biweekly schedule, shock horror!), but the reason I’m posting it [...]
Matthew Scarborough has featured at LH many times (see, e.g., here), and he has now posted The Indo-European Cognate Relationships dataset (Scientific Data 12. 1541): This is somewhat old news [...]
Two letters from the latest LRB column (Vol. 47 No. 16 · 11 September 2025; archived): Colin Kidd, writing about Stefan Collini’s history of English studies in Britain, mentions that [...]
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