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As Lewis Carroll's Alice observed, if you drink from a bottle marked "poison," it is almost certain to disagree with you sooner or later. But what about venom or a toxin? Today we'll take a look at these three terms and figure out what makes them different from one another.

(With the help of the cast of "Star Trek: The Original Series")

Just look at those words! Aren't they wonderful? And as readers who consume a wide variety of literature, we recognize them, don't we? Of course we do!

A more difficult question is "Do we know exactly what they mean?" For my part, I'm not ashamed to say "not exactly, no."

These sorts of words are what author Seth Stevenson calls "bubble ( Read more... )

Anticipation, sang Carly Simon: It's keeping me waiting.

Today's Say What? features a pair of sayings that go well with Simon's famous song. We'll explore them with the help of Gansey III's crew from Maggie Stiefvater's Young Adult series, the Raven Cycle.
(We can't wait!)

Today's set of easily confused words is as mellifluous as it is puzzling. We'll try to clarify the situation with the help of the Knight of Lost Words, October ("Toby") Daye, and her friends.
( All right, let's go! )

In today's column, we'll examine a trio of easily confused and closely related words, with the help of the cast of C.J. Cherryh's science fiction novel Merchanter's Luck.
( Let's go! )

Last year, Guardian opinion desk editor David Shariatmadari, who often writes about language and communication, considered some of the ways that pronunciation of the English language has changed with time. His article examined eight specific types of changes, some of which are quite recent. I already knew about some of these shifts- for example ( Read more... )

Sometimes languages just don't make sense, do they? Why, for instance, is "backyard" sometimes correct in English, but not always? And why is "frontyard" never correct? Let's take a look at these and similar constructions and see what conclusions we draw.
( With the help of the cast of the children's fantasy classics Half Magic and Magic by the Lake, both by Edward Eager … )

Even though rain is necessary for life, the fact that raindrops look like teardrops, along with the darkened skies that rain brings with it during the day, make rain an allusion to sorrow or bad luck in many cultures. Let's take a closer look at a couple of familiar sayings about the rain that are really comments about misfortune.
( With the help of the cast of the manga and anime series Black Lagoon … )

badtzphoto was wondering whether run-on sentences are allowed in dialogue. To answer this, we'll first take a closer look at the nature of run-on sentences and then explore what happens when one is used in dialog.
( With help from the cast of the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee … )