“Maybe it’s because it spins around like the world.” While mildly amused by their mishearing of “whirl” as “world,” I was deeply amazed by our inherent human curiosity about the origins of words. In ...

The controversy surrounding why Neil Armstrong's famous moon quote was misheard by millions of people worldwide may have been less to do with dodgy recording equipment and more to do with his unique ...

You’re belting out your favorite ’80s anthem at the top of your lungs, completely confident in every word, when someone stops you mid-chorus to point out that you’ve been singing the wrong lyrics for ...

“Pass mustard.” “Taken for granite.” “Flaw in the ointment.” If any of these phrases have popped up in an email or a text that you’ve received, you may have thought that the sender’s autocorrect ...

“Pass mustard.” “Taken for granite.” “Flaw in the ointment.” If any of these phrases have popped up in an email or a text that you’ve received, you may have thought that the sender’s autocorrect ...

ON JUNE 12TH The Economist’s pages featured an activist investor “honing in on the dearth of energy experience” on a company’s board. A few readers honed in on a solecism: the original phrase is to ...

What do you call that part of your back which you can never scratch on your own? So let's take a break from all the #Indianisms we've been listing out for the last four weeks and get ready to be ...

This list started with Joel Dimmock, a recent colleague, who spotted the word “trobbing” in an article before publication. It was a typing mistake for “throbbing”, but a new word could so easily have ...