Snaggletooth (Rebroadcast) - 30 December 2024

There are word nerds, and then there’s the woman who set up a folding chair on sidewalks throughout the country, cheerfully dispensing tips about grammar. She recounts her adventures in a new book. And the story of the brilliant pioneer of computing language whose name lives on i ...  Show more

How do dictionaries define colors? And why are some of those definitions so confusing, like “stronger than carmine” and “bluer than fiesta”? Dictionary editor Kory Stamper explains it all in her new book. Plus, the story behind the expression more bang for your buck goes back to ...  Show more

The prologue of The Canterbury Tales used to be part of a standard-issue training set in English courses. Today I'm RETVRNing to tradition and rebooting the old practice of memorizing--or at least reciting--the first few lines of this defining English poem in Middle English. Plus ...  Show more

Next time you want to get everyone's attention for a speech at a party, try this: stand up on a table, pound your mead-chalice on a hard surface (you've got a mead-chalice, right?) and shout HWÆT! No one will have any idea what you're saying, but they'll have no choice but to lis ...  Show more

Send us Fan MailOn this trip, we're looking at the conventional candidate for the first modern novel in English. Defoe's story of a resourceful man shipwrecked on a desert island is so much more than a ripping yarn: it speaks to the rise of a literary vernacular language, the val ...  Show more

On March 2, we celebrate Read Across America Day, a time when schools across the U.S. encourage kids to dive into the magical world of books. But why March 2? Well, it’s no coincidence—that’s the birthday of a man whose impact on children’s literature is nothing short of legendar ...  Show more