Is Your English Really English? A Quiz on the Global Gift of Words
Does your vocabulary come from Hindi, Swahili, or Chinese? This fun quiz teaches you the global origins of ‘shampoo,’ ‘safari,’ ‘ketchup,’ and more!
Related Posts
Where Did Your Shirt Come From? A Quiz on the Global Origins of Fashion
This fun fashion quiz helps you trace the global origins of textiles. Match patterns like Paisley, Kente cloth, and Batik to their home countries and celebrate our shared textile heritage.
Why Are Africa’s Borders So Straight? A Quiz on the “Scramble for Africa”
Compare the maps of Africa from 1880 to 1914. This quiz explains the “Scramble for Africa,” the Berlin Conference, and the lasting legacy of the borders that shape the continent today.
Recent Posts
In bocca al lupo | The Safest Place in the Forest
A poetic dive into the Italian good-luck phrase in bocca al lupo — “into the mouth of the wolf” — the argument Italians are still having about the correct reply, and what predators actually do to a landscape.
Dirge: The Song That Begins With Direct
A poetic dive into “dirge” — a word for the music of grief, which turns out to be the crumpled remains of a Latin word meaning guide me.
The Flat Earth Myth: How We Invented a Stupid Middle Ages
Medieval Europeans knew the Earth was round. Columbus knew. His critics knew, and they were right about the part that mattered. So where did the flat Earth story come from? A novelist, two Victorian polemicists, and our deep appetite for feeling smarter than the dead.
Danny Debates | The Man Who Flattened the Earth | Washington Irving
Washington Irving invented the flat Earth myth in 1828. Danny puts him on trial for the lie that made Columbus a hero and the Middle Ages a joke.
Auf dem Zahnfleisch gehen | Walking on the Gums
A poetic dive into the German idiom auf dem Zahnfleisch gehen — “to walk on the gums” — and what the suspended architecture of a single tooth reveals about the first thing exhaustion takes from you.
Small Talk in English: How to Start, Continue and Escape a Conversation at a Networking Event
Learn the English of networking — question forms, the echo responses that keep a conversation alive, question tags, and the graceful exit nobody teaches. Plus why the people who help your career are rarely your closest friends.
0 Comments