The English language is full of surprises, and some of its most fascinating ones come in the form of words so long they look impossible to pronounce. While most of us stick to simple, everyday vocab, ...

English, whatever its merits as a language, is a bitch to spell. There are so many rules, and so many exceptions, and yet in the end you have to learn a lot of words on a case-by-case basis. If future ...

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

Tear in eye your dress you’ll tear. So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer, Pray, console your loving poet, Make my coat look new, dear, sew it? Just compare heart, beard and heard, Dies and diet, lord and ...

One of the best things going on around 200 B.C.E. (from this linguist’s point of view, at least) was that a librarian in Alexandria, Aristophanes of Byzantium, invented the first punctuation system ...

Longest word in English: There are many ways to describe the English language, but one word that describes its characteristics best is rich. The English language has become so rich over many centuries ...