What does a Hanseatic city have to do with America's most popular sandwich? How is the city of Mozart related to a ballpark favorite? And how did the names of these cities end up as common and productive English words? It's all because of Americans' love for an ethnic food that's so much a part of our diet that we might not even realize it's ethnic: namely, German cuisine.  Continue reading...

Lead is the name of a metallic element. Pronounced a different way, it's a verb meaning to take someone somewhere. But the past tense of the verb, led, sounds like the name of the metallic element. Confusing enough? Let Julia Rubiner clear up the situation, with a little help from rock legends Led Zeppelin.  Continue reading...

"The whole nine yards," meaning "the full extent of something," remains one of the most puzzling idioms for word-watchers. Everyone seems to have their own explanation for where the expression comes from, and yet there is still no definitive origin story for it. This is surprising for a phrase that's not terribly old: scattered uses can be found from the 1960s, and now it's been pushed back a bit earlier, to 1956.  Continue reading...

Via Twitter, theatre director Jen Bender posed a question that had recently come up in conversation: "A married man's lover is his mistress. What's the name for a woman's illicit lover?" Searching for an answer to that question points to the many gender-related asymmetries in English.  Continue reading...

We welcome back James Harbeck for another installment of his "Word Tasting Notes." Here he considers the subtle distinction between a "bookstore" and a "bookshop."  Continue reading...

Max Crittenden writes: "I'm seeing some peculiar usage (misuse, to my mind) of the phrase 'out of pocket.' 'My housekeeper has injured her leg and will be out of pocket for a while.' 'Sorry, I've been out of pocket and haven't gotten to your request." Is anyone else noticing this? To me, 'out of pocket' means only 'short of money.'"  Continue reading...