Word Stories Archives

Word Stories: handsome

Those of us who are not cut out to be supermodels may well agree with the old English proverb that…

While planning a new product in 1994, the Coca-Cola company found that Coca-Cola was the second most recognisable term across…

You don’t have to go far in England, particularly in the south, to find somewhere selling over-priced tea and scones…

Here goes. I’m going to have a go at dealing with go, one of the commonest, and most complicated, verbs…

In the mathematical realm of game theory, there is a simple game that has been analyzed and which is often…

It’s been said that there are two words in English for which there are no perfect rhymes. One of them…

In most European languages, the spring festival commemorating the resurrection of Christ is referred to by a name related to…

Thanks to the many people who expressed an interest in last month’s column on the verb be. A colleague asked…

Often, the longer and more unusual a word, the easier it is to trace its development. It can be broken…

How does a word once full of negative connotations come to mean something positive? Take nice, for example. Nice is…