“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” — Lewis Carroll When we use a word, does it always mean what […]

Recently I wrote a piece about the popularity explosion of crossword puzzles early in the last century. Why, then, did it take two more decades for someone to create a board game about words, and then another two decades before that game finally caught on? Let’s take a look at the game of Scrabble. It […]

We offer you parts of the English language that bring us joy to give you a brief reprieve from the news cycle.