Have you ever encountered a bloat of hippos or a charm of finches? This entertaining website, created by researcher and educator Melissa Kaplan, provides various descriptive terms for an extensive list of animals. Part 1 of the site contains plurals, collective nouns, and words for sounds, gender, and offspring. For example, a female kangaroo is a flyer, and a young swan is cygnet. Part 2 offers...

H.L. Mencken, a journalist who was one of the most celebrated American writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was often referred to as “The Sage of Baltimore”. Writing in a number of Baltimore’s daily papers, Mencken developed an acerbic wit and a penchant for syllogisms that would serve him well for decades. As a defender and scholar of American English, Mencken wrote “The American...