Take a look at the following English words: butcher, squirrel, mortgage, and choir. Does something seem off about them? At one point in time, the words move and love rhymed. So did blood, good, and ...

How can it be that “laughter” and “daughter” not only don’t rhyme but don’t sound remotely alike? What about “tomb,” “bomb,” and “comb”? Meanwhile, “liar” and “choir,” which couldn’t look more ...

The Hechinger Report covers one topic: education. Sign up for our newsletters to have stories delivered to your inbox. Consider becoming a member to support our nonprofit journalism. The problem ...

Most of us learnt that ‘a’ goes before consonants and ‘an’ before vowels – and most of us were only half-right. This Learning ...

Johnny in Topeka can’t read, but Janne in Helsinki is effortlessly finishing his storybooks. Such a disparity may be expected by now, but the reason might come as a surprise: It probably has much less ...

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The Church publishes the Monitor ...

Kate Burridge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

The English language is a weird and wonderful beast. Growing up speaking it as a first language can be hard, but imagine what it's like to try and learn it. The Oxford Dictionary, bless 'em, have come ...

It's important to note that the spelling of a word is not always an accurate guide to how it is pronounced. Similarly the pronounciation of a word is not always helpful when working out how that word ...

I remember walking down a busy street in Delhi during my first stay in India and noting the different ways in which the same words were written in Latin script. Lakshmi here, Luxmi there. Since then I ...