That's What They Say

While people may agree that being proactive is a positive trait, the word proactive can elicit some very negative reactions, so to speak.

Is your cat running around in circles? Be advised, that kitty might be pixilated.

When we talk about Middle English, it suggests that we know when English began and when it ends.

There are lots of cards we can still play now, but we’ve lost some good ones too.

If "hunky dory" means the same thing as "right as rain," then we face the question of how right rain is.

While we may know highfalutin language when we hear it, we don't all agree about how to spell "highfalutin" or where it comes from.

We exchange scuttlebutt at the proverbial water cooler, and there's an etymological clue in that.

The little clock we wear on our wrist could be called a clock. Instead, it has long had its own term, being called a watch instead.

Sometimes new slang jumps out in front of you, waving its hands, or thumbs, so that you can’t help but notice it. Sometimes it just sneaks up on you.

We can count fathoms when we’re measuring things. We can also metaphorically fathom or not fathom things.

This is a bespoke segment of That’s What They Say that focuses on “bespoke.”

If it’s up your alley, it might also be up your street. And perhaps it’s down rather than up.

You say "lieutenant," I say “leftenant” but let’s not call the whole thing off.

There’s more than one way to be wonky, and not all of them are bad.

Adverbs don’t always get a lot of love, captured powerfully in the writing tip “Abolish the adverbs.”

We scrimp and we save, and we skimp and we still save, which makes one wonder whether scrimping is different from skimping

Cheesemongers sell cheese, and gossipmongers usually start the gossip or spread it, rather than sell it.

Many of us don’t talk about doornails very often, but sometimes we will when things are really, well, dead.

If you know how the sound "f" worked in Old English, it suddenly isn’t mysterious why the "f" in "leaf" turns into a "v" in the plural form "leaves."